Trial of the Guardian
by Mr.McSpiff
Summary: Another prophecy, another adventure, another hero. But then... it doesn't take divine blood to be a hero.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Well, ladies and gentlemen, here starts the story. The _right_ way this time, and not like that other piece of crap _(Language, William!) _in my story list, from a year ago. Just a few notes before we start off. First and foremost: Shrrg, who I have much to thank for in terms of plot-development and making sure I don't get too crazy, beta'd this chapter on her own before we worked out the system we use now: sharing the chapter on Google Docs, and arguing with each other until she likes how it flows, but it's written in my style. _(So if my voice comes through a little heavily in this first chapter, please excuse Spiffy here. That's totally my bad, and I will be silent as a lamb for the rest of the story. You won't even know I'm here.)_

She's also watching me type this, right now. (_I'm in italics. Google Docs is fun!) _

Yes, she's in italics, Google Docs _is_ fun, and this is most definitely my story! However, huge thank-you for her for helping me out with this over the past... oh, god, year and some change-and for letting me borrow her Hunters! Well, borrow and make them better, but don't let her know I said that. _(Um, Will? Google Docs. Busted. My Hunters are the best and you know it.)_

I know they're the best, but they're even better with Marcus and-... wait, spoilers. They can read that on their own, later. _(Yessir.)_

Right. So now that you've gotten to see what the many hours of us talking on AIM have been like, on to the story- wait. Before you go, one final thing. Any similarities between this and Broken Bow weren't done with intent to copy Xed. He got here first, I admit it, but damn if the guy doesn't have some good ideas that deserve regular use! _(Easy there, Will. It's not like we're copying the plot, it's not even similar! For one thing, this is an AU of Titan's Curse, with no children of Artemis. For those of you who don't like AUs-give it a chance. I usually don't either, but this one's seriously good. I wouldn't be here otherwise. And Xed _said _we could use the chart o' gods, which is the only thing we took from BB.)_

Yeah, well... shut up! In this day and age-

_(Hijacked by the beta. Read the story. Have fun.)_  
>_<p>

It had been almost two weeks since we'd gotten the new guy in homeroom.

Sylvus Hawthorne was his name; he was about my height, six feet or so, and remarkably average, though a bit antisocial. He looked at everyone in the halls like he was daring them to try to eat him or something. I almost felt sorry for the guy; he wore braces on his legs and walked with a limp, and I suspected the reason he was so jumpy, so clearly willing to fight, was because he was used to being picked on and he was sick of it. He certainly didn't make much of an effort to make friends. The only person I ever really saw him talk to was an Asian girl in my History class named Amanda. Amanda, hell if I know her last name, was just about as average as her newfound tail except for the fact that she didn't smell like freshly cut grass from a foot away.

"Pat. You're daydreaming again," an irked voice informed me.

Now, I could tell you with reasonable certainty that Amanda _didn't _smell like I just mowed my lawn, because I was sitting across a desk from her. It dawned on me that we were supposed to be studying in partners for our upcoming test, and I managed a remarkably slow reply in the form of "Yeah? Oh, just- "

"Distracted?" she finished for me, like she knew what I was going to say. "You've been that way for most of the week now. The test is on _Friday,_Pat," she said irritably. I got the feeling that I wasn't her first choice of study partner.

"I know," I responded, a weary sort of sigh escaping me. "Just trying to figure what the new guy's found in the trees is all." It wasn't a lie. Sylvus was as occupied with the courtyard on the other side of the window as I am with good books. My reluctant study partner made a quiet sound, and it was more than obvious that she didn't entirely buy my excuse, but she didn't push and I was grateful for it. We didn't really know each other, but Amanda seemed like a nice enough girl. Certainly she was sensitive to others' feelings; most people would have told Sylvus to beat it weeks ago.

It was an honest surprise when she asked, "You're not so sure about him?" I didn't feel like giving mono-syllable replies today, so a shake of my head stood in to answer. "Neither am I," she followed up, and that prompted me to turn and face her fully. She continued as I was shifting, voice lowered. "But he doesn't rub me the wrong way nearly as much as our English sub. She's always eying me, like she's trying to catch me doing something wrong."

I nodded at that, giving an affirmative grunt. Ms. O'Hara, the district's substitute teacher for the time being, was a fairly unpleasant woman of middling age. She always seemed to be wearing the same coat with obscenely ugly decorative feathers on the arms; one of the feathers had fallen out in class last week, and when I mentioned it she'd looked at me like she wanted to tear my head off. I made it a point not to do anything incriminating around her.

"She's been keeping an eye on Silly, too, hasn't she?" I said, brow furrowing a bit. I'd never been a favorite of substitute teachers—what can I say? If you hate kids, you're in the wrong career—but Sylvus was practically a saint; I don't think he'd missed a single assignment all year, and he never spoke up at all in her class unless he was asked a direct question. For some reason, however, whenever the poor guy so much as twitched in the wrong direction he earned a death glare that I swear made the room drop five degrees.

"Oh, don't call him that." Amanda sighed and glanced out the window to where Sylvus was munching on an apple, tapping his foot absently against the pavement. "He's really not that weird, it's just that people make fun of the way he walks..."

She trailed off as one of the office TAs came into the classroom and handed the teacher a slip of paper. Mrs. Ryerson—and the only reason I remembered her name was because it was sitting on her desk-blinked and frowned at it, adjusting her glasses, then looked up and peered around the room until her gaze lighted on us. "Amanda," she said, holding out the office pass, "Ms. O'Hara would like to see you as soon as possible."

Amanda flipped her textbook shut reluctantly and gave me a look that could have meant either "Speak of the devil" or "Help!" before shoving it into her backpack, collecting the hall pass and stalking out. I felt a small wave of pity for the poor girl; being called out of class for Ms. O'Hara to lecture you was probably somewhere between disembowelment and the Chinese Water Torture on the lists of fates to be avoided at all costs. With a small groan, I forced myself to focus, pulling my criminally thick textbook closer to double-check the next question on our study sheet.

_Follow her._

I paused, wondering where the urge had come from. I wasn't exactly a model student, but I was also not in the habit of cutting class to stalk my classmates.

_Follow her!_

I shook my head and frowned at the study sheet. I'd daydreamed through most of the chapter on Reconstruction, and now was not the time to be skipping review sessions. _The Tenure of Office Act required the Senate's approval for-_

_Follow. Her._

You know, I thought, I think maybe I should follow her.

I stood casually and glanced at our History teacher, who was holding her novel roughly two inches from her nose, squinting as she tried to read the pages.

I'm not the most light-footed of guys, not by a long shot, but by the various gods that woman was engrossed in her book! I strolled casually up to the pencil sharpener next to the whiteboard, glanced back at her to ensure she wasn't watching me, and slipped into the hall.

I made my way down the hall, wishing I'd thought to grab a hall pass before leaving History. Having just gotten out of Ms. O'Hara's English class last period, I wasn't thrilled to be going back, but something pushed me to hurry nonetheless. I wasn't really sure, as I walked down the English hallway, what I expected to _do_when I got there—barge in and start yelling at the sub for giving Amanda a bad grade or something?—but I ended up flat against the wall outside O'Hara's room anyway. I could hear them arguing about something, but the conversation was muted by the door. The obvious enjoyment in O'Hara's voice and the obvious fear in Amanda's made me angry on principle; she hadn't done anything to deserve being bullied by a sadistic sub.

I jumped when I realized I wasn't alone.

Sylvus was pressed up against the wall on the other side of the doorway, looking pale. I had no clue how someone with a muscle condition like his had managed to sneak up so silently, but there he was.

"Man," I muttered as the argument grew louder. "O'Hara's chewing her out."

Sylvus rolled his shoulders nervously, and I noticed with a jolt of surprise that his leg braces were gone. "Yeah," he muttered. "Look, Pat, maybe you should get out of here."

"What?"

"I think I know what this is about, I'll settle it. You should get back to class before-"

He was cut off by a muffled commotion from inside the room. "God!" I exclaimed, shooting Sylvus an incredulous look. "Are they _fighting_in-"

"Stay back!" Sylvus barked with an authority I'd never heard from him before. Cursing under his breath in some kind of foreign language, he yanked the door open and leaped into the room. Not in the habit of taking orders from weird seniors who may or may not have leg problems, I followed.

And promptly froze in shock.

Ms. O'Hara, the fifty-some year old English substitute, was holding Amanda about six inches off the floor, sleeve-obscured hand gripping her throat. The feathers on her jacket were ruffled up, as if she fluffed them between periods, and I could've sworn her jacket was tightening against her body. Amanda was clawing at the hand clamped around her throat, eyes wide with terror.

My eyes surrendered to that inadvertent blink of disbelief, and then I saw it. The teacher's wrinkled hands were nowhere to be found, instead replaced by much more threatening-looking, talon-like hands with nails more akin to claws. The jacket was gone now, leaving the feathers bound to her arm by- no, they _were_part of her arm.

It must have taken a large part of my awareness to register that fact, because the next moment I became suddenly aware of the fact that I was sprawled out on my back, my rear end hurt, and there was a body on top of me. Amanda scrambled up faster than I would have thought possible, and I could see all sorts of fear on her face in the second-long glance I stole. I followed her example, rising to my feet in time to hear a mind-shattering screech as the whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is charged us, and I nearly tripped again as someone yanked me back by the arm. In the moment it took for O'Hara to right herself and abort the failed rush, the rest of us came to an understanding, and a very simple one at that: We needed to get the disgruntled substitute out of this building and away from everyone. Several of those everyones were becoming apparent in the form of hurried footsteps and the telltale sound of walkie-talkie transmissions coming down the hallway just as a series of confused, excited murmurs started sounding from the now-closed classroom door behind me.

We didn't have time to come up with a plan, which is probably what helped me come up with my plan. I've never liked being told what I couldn't do.

Amanda beat me to it, though. The door I had been glancing at suddenly opened and a shaky "Come on!" rang over the slowly increasing volume of footsteps. Sylvus shoved me out the door behind her, wielding a textbook, and I heard a screech of pain before he came bolting after us.

We were halfway down the next hallway when the door slammed open – and I swear I heard metal crunching in on itself. An unholy scream of _"Get back here, brats!"_assaulted my ears, blanking my mind in sudden fear. I may have reflexively told her to go do something graphic with a barn animal in response.

I have a very healthy appreciation of my own abilities, but in that moment, with some sort of banshee shrieking and racing after me, I ran. It was all I could do to keep pace with Amanda and Sylvus, whose alleged muscle issues had long since been proven false. I was not built for speed by any stretch of the imagination and the fact was becoming painfully apparent in the form of a growing burn in my lungs. I desperately hoped adrenaline was enough to balance the odds, if only enough to allow me a dignified death.

Thankfully enough, the death-defying chemical running through my blood kept me at a full sprint, if only barely. I was faintly aware of a lockdown announcement over the PA system as we burst through a door to the school's courtyard, sunlight forcing my eyes closed. I'd no idea what possessed me to dive to the grass, off to the side, but it saved my life. Another frustrated screech tore from O'Hara's throat, but it took me a few moments to realize, as I scrambled to my feet, that it was coming from above me.

I thought for sure she'd come after me again; God knows I'd made the most cracks at her out of the three of us. But I guess the others had some bad karma. A strafing run from the now airborne bird-woman—what was going _on_here?—sent the wide-eyed Sylvus to the ground so hard his shoes came off. For a second it looked like he had a large pair of boots on underneath. I didn't have much time to reason that one out, though, because the soaring substitute was coming around again. I sprinted as quickly as my burning legs and abused lungs would allow, but even at my best I wouldn't have outpaced the airborne creature before she made it to Amanda. The dark-haired girl screamed as O'Hara's form blocked her from sight, and my heart leapt to my throat as the scream cut off abruptly. The flying hag let out a triumphant screech, but that was before my momentum ran us both into the cement.

It was a blur from then, my awareness clouded by a searing rage that bubbled up as the creature's victory call rang in my ears. I felt myself come to a rough stop on O'Hara's now-prone body, snarling as her claws marked my face and arms with wild swipes, drawing lines of stinging red. I had to have reared back for a punch, because the next moment my fist was meeting something that, while solid, gave way with what I perceived as a muted crunch. The frenzied shrieks ringing into my adrenaline-insulated ears turned to choked, frantic sounds as I caught something firm, vaguely fleshy, and cylindrical in my grip. My next noise dwarfed any that she had made, a roar as I clamped down on what must have been her throat, the muscles of her windpipe collapsing as I squeezed. A final, strangled yelp parted O'Hara's hooked beak, and almost a minute later I was beginning to register the fact that I was straddling a pile of dust.

Dark red blood trickled sluggishly between and around the courtyard tiles, and I had a sinking feeling it wasn't Ms. O'Hara's.

My breaths came heavily as soon as I could will myself to take them. Hands pulled at my shoulders, and I nearly surged up again before a dim voice began to grow in volume, each passing second returning more of my senses to me. I registered dimly that there were no longer two people at my side, but only one, arm hooked under mine and smelling faintly of cut grass. After a few moments of stumbling as the sudden exertions of the past ten minutes finally caught up to my adrenaline-fueled body, Sylvus Hawthorne's voice echoed in my ears.

"Amanda's dead," he told me, helping me to steady myself as we made our way toward the other end of the courtyard. "We have to get out of here. I'll explain everything when we're safer."

What just happened?

_You were attacked. _

What did I just do?

_You fought back. _

What… happens now?

_You keep going._

The thought, and hopefully that's what it was, made sense and it wasn't like I had other options considering the circumstances. Whatever instinct it was that helped me overpower a mythical being was also all that kept me going, I realized, as the sudden urge to sit down and lock up overtook everything but my legs. Sylvus tried a few times to ask me if I was alright, but I couldn't force a syllable past my lips, much less a full-fledged reply. The impulse to give in to shock bled out of me as we walked further, and I couldn't help but notice a faint _clip-clop_as my new human crutch turned us down a side street, and then another a few moments later. We had been walking for what felt like an hour, which meant it was somewhere between ten and twenty minutes. I found I could open my mouth after awhile, and had the feeling that now was the only time I'd get to figure out just what the hell was going on.

"Stop," I croaked, wincing slightly as the death-like sound of my own ragged voice caught up with me. "Sylvus, what…?" I trailed off as he guided me toward a tree, too scatterbrained to even figure out what, exactly, I wanted to ask him. He must have caught on, though, because a single nod and a tired sigh came back to me in answer.

"It's a lot to explain," he told me after a short silence, reaching down to adjust his pant legs. "I'll start off with the most immediate part; I'm not exactly...human." The shiny boots I'd seen earlier weren't actually boots. They were hooves, plain as day, though they were revealed much less lethally than the last beast-like set of limbs I'd seen on someone. It was odd; I should have been taken aback, but it was almost like I'd seen this kind of thing before, _many_times before, and I knew it wasn't something I should fear.

A thought jumped to my mind upon seeing the source of the faint _clip-clop_sounds from earlier, voiced in a word before I even realized I'd spoken. "Satyr." Sylvus nodded, and continued on to tell me a few particularly interesting things.

First and foremost, Greek mythology wasn't mythology at all. Given the presence of two mythical creatures in one day, one of which had tried to kill me and the other of which had tried to save my life, I didn't feel qualified to argue that point.

Secondly, Amanda was attacked and killed because she – he said 'you two,' but I dismissed it as a stress-induced slip of the tongue – had been a half-blood, someone with one of the aforementioned Greek gods for a parent. She still was, I suppose, a half-blood…hell of a lot of good it did her now.

"Camp Half-Blood is in New York," Sylvus told me, answering one of my earlier questions. "I was supposed to get Amanda there after she found out who she was. I was so worried about her I didn't even _realize_there were two!" he muttered, shaking his head disgustedly. "Idiot! No wonder there was a Kindly One involved, you were completely unguarded!"

Deciding not to get into the fact that I had been in the fight on pure chance, I brought the conversation back to the (strangely more understandable) topic of a mythical training camp for demigods. "New York is across Lake Michigan and up a ways, how did you plan to get there on foot?" I asked. The Satyr-Senior flashed me a grin, bringing something up to his lips. A quick tune later and I was being covered by leaves as the tree branches above me decided they didn't want to _stay_above me.

I couldn't tell you exactly how long we'd been in the tree before the branches lifted, but there was one hell of a change in scenery in that time. Either it snowed a few inches in about a minute, or we were very much out of Wisconsin. Come to think of it, both options were plausible. Sylvus had probably heard the startled – and decidedly profane – exclamation about to leave my lips from other people in the past, because I heard him speak up in a cheery tour guide's voice. "Welcome to Connecticut, home of snow and ice and nothing else of importance in regards to our trip!" he said brightly, with the air of having done the same many times before. "Thank you for keeping your limbs inside the tree while grove-walking, and please exit the branches in an orderly fashion!"

"We're right next to New York," I grunted, "If you wanted to give me a heart attack, why not at least bring us right to Camp?" We were, in fact, only a few inches away from the border on a map. I had the sneaking suspicion that those few inches translated to a many-mile-long hike for us, which wasn't exactly a thought I relished.

The answer I received, while not what I wanted to hear, was surprisingly mundane and reasonable. "Transporting two people by grove-walking is harder than it looks, so I had to just take a general shot. I got pretty close, if I do say so myself. Besides," he added. "It's better than swimming through Lake Michigan."

I couldn't help but grin. Out here, it was easier to forget about exactly what had happened. The terror and horror seemed surreal, belonging somewhere else, and we could pretend to ourselves that everything was fine. We set on like that for awhile, telling the occasional joke or making mandatory comments about the "nice weather" as we cut through alleyways and open yards, when Sylvus spoke up.

"Which one of your parents is gone?" he asked, as if that was the social norm. It took me a moment, in which I nearly became acquainted with the ground after stepping on a snow-hidden ice patch, to answer.

"Both are accounted for," I answered, negotiating another frozen section of the sidewalk before continuing. "My old man and his wife, but don't get me started on-"

"Your real mom disappeared, then?" he asked, not giving me a chance to finish as he continued. "When you were too young to remember, right?" I suppose I couldn't be mad at the guy; it sounded like he heard the parent-less story from everyone he dealt with. Despite my understanding, however, I still had to bite my tongue for a moment while working out a less profane answer.

"No," I said. "She's in Milwaukee. Both parents are alive and well, Hawthorne, why shouldn't they be?"

Sylvus looked at me, and I tried not to bristle at the pity in his eyes. "And…you're sure that they're both your _real_-"

"Yeah. I am."

He let the subject drop, but I could tell he didn't believe me.

I was damned lucky I had worn my hoodie today, I realized as I shivered again. I wasn't exactly toasty, but with long sleeves and pockets I could at least fake only being _mildly _uncomfortable. It occurred to me, as we trudged over a show-covered field (probably a public park or the like), that my phone still had a charge. Rather, the vibrating buzz of a text message alerted me to that fact, and I fumbled my phone out of its pocket with stiff fingers. Who the hell...oh. Melissa, my _wonderful_ex-girlfriend, had sent me a frantic text asking where I was, and why the teachers were talking about a dead body. Thanks for the concern, dear, but why don't you let me deal with the fact that I just watched someone get murdered? I made a dissatisfied noise, just managing to shove my cell back into my pocket before a sharp cry froze me faster than the four hours of relentless winter weather. The cry was vaguely avian and painful from even what sounded like a great distance, and I heard Sylvus utter a few words that were less than nice.

Before I could voice the "What the hell?" on the tip of my tongue, another, harsher sound reached my ears; barking. Dogs, if you could call them that, heavier than me and almost as tall, eyes glowing visibly red even from this distance, charged at us through the thickly piled snow. That obstacle was probably all that saved Sylvus and me as we fled in the opposite direction. A glance over locked our gazes for a brief, terror-conquered moment, and I knew he was thinking the same thing as me.

Even with the distance already between us and the hunting dogs from hell, they were bound to overtake us, and it wouldn't be pretty when they did.

Sylvus ducked around a tree and I nearly spilled into the snowy grass following him, panting so heavily I nearly forgot how cold I had gotten. "I guess my luck was bound to run out eventually," he muttered, a far off look in his eye. "I was getting closer and closer every time. And now…"

I wanted to answer, to reassure him that we would survive this just like the last round of ding-dong-ditch with Death. But any words were swept away by the rush of terror in my system, and the realization—just barely dawning, a delayed reaction because of the shock—that we _hadn't_all survived. Was this it, then? Just like Amanda not five hours ago, did it end for us both as a meal for some mythical beast?

I caught him shaking his head out of the corner of my eyes, shifting his arm to do something or another. "Patrick," he said distantly, as I started to face him, "Go to Camp Half-Blood, with the strongest blessing I can give you."

I was opening my mouth to ask what brought _that _on when a sturdy hoof flashed and a sudden impact, just below my diaphragm, knocked the breath from my lungs. I lost my balance and tumbled back against the tree, scrambling to get up just before another double blow landed in about the same spot, bringing a whole new meaning to the word _starstruck_as my vision exploded into white. A hurried tune sounded in my ears, fuzzy from the shock of being hit so suddenly, and then I was covered by leaves.

I sucked in a ragged breath, batting the branches away from me as soon as I could bring my arms up. It wasn't like before, when the trees' grip had been more of a caress; I couldn't breathe, and I felt like I was being squeezed, pulled; a flash of painfully bright light accompanied by a searing pain in my head blinded me and I fought the gripping branches with everything I had. But by then, they were already moving up by themselves. A few shocked exclamations came from around me, almost as if the trees themselves were surprised at my sudden appearance. It dawned on me that there were far more of those trees than just a moment ago, and my mind kicked into overdrive as something else occurred to me.

I wasn't lying on snow anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Whew! Took me a little while longer than I wanted, but Chapter Two is up! I get to be at the top of the archive again, yay! This chapter sounds a lot less like I cheated and had Shrrg write it for me, to boot, and so you all finally get to hear the properly sarcastic, jaded wreck that Patrick is already starting to become!

It also occurs to me that, after reading a review, I made no indication as to Pat's gender before the very end of the last chapter. He's a guy, honest-and thanks to Emily Darkbow for pointing out the little goof-up of mine. (And shush, 'Manda; it's not _you_I'm killing here!)

_Also I'm still alive. Boo. Fans of the Dysfunctionalverse get three guesses as to who Chiron is passing his greeting to, and the first two don't count!_

Speaking of Chiron, I'll admit I'm still a bit iffy on writing him. Tell me what you all think of how I handled the scene, and I'll strive to improve! Furthermore, before I let you go, I'll try to set up an updating rate of a chapter between every one and two weeks, depending on how kind school and life are.

**Now go read!**

* * *

><p>I wish I could tell you how I bolted up, ready for action, but I didn't-I really, really didn't. I just slumped back against the tree and breathed, and might have even forgotten to do that a few times as the past few hours started washing over me. The Greek myths... real, monsters... chasing me, Amanda and Sylvus... dead. Even without that sledgehammer of a realization I had a lot to worry about: no idea where I was, or how to get back home to Wisconsin, which I had the distinct feeling I was nowhere near. Hell, I'd even settle for my father in Chicago at this p-<p>

_Get up._

It took me a minute to realize that the voice in my head, the one driving me to survive, wasn't in my head at all. It was a very strong gut feeling that, if it had a voice, would probably be saying-

_Get UP!_

I didn't stop to argue, or even think, before shoving myself up off the ground. I came to my feet a lot more steadily than you might think after just having been hit in the chest, and finally started to process my surroundings. Of course, it's not like that was hard; all I could see was a bunch of trees! I started forward, figuring any direction was worth a shot at this point, because I really couldn't get _more_lost. I stopped after a few steps and looked around uneasily, suddenly unable to shake the feeling that something was watching me-a lot of somethings. I looked up...and only found more branches. The leaves played innocent patterns in the sunlight, as if they turned away when I looked at them.

Fine by me, the trees could watch me all they wanted. I was just glad they weren't trying to kill me.

It's a little odd that I began to relax so soon after everything that just happened, but... I don't know. Maybe it was a defense mechanism, maybe I had a better tolerance for earth-shattering revelations than I thought, or maybe the woods are just plain relaxing. Whatever the reason, this aimless walk through a strange stretch of woods was doing more to calm me down and let me think than that guidance counselor's lecture about why flooring the jock who got into my face wasn't something I needed to do.

She was perfectly right, of course; I didn't _need _to give him that black eye. But then again, he didn't need to get his jersey in a knot because I warned him off the cheerleader he was going to try to pick up. (Without going into too much detail, I knew she was playing him across the court, pardon the sports pun, but he decided to take an honest warning badly and came after me. Let me just say, even with the bruises I got, that hour-long detention was very worth it.)

It dawned on me that I probably shouldn't be worried about the people I didn't like when I could end up too dead to worry about them, and so I firmly recommitted myself to dealing with the fact that I was alone in a stretch of woods I had never seen before. Maybe if I managed to find a road...

… Is that thing made out of marble?

I took a cautious step past the treeline-funny how the forest went from dangerous to a safe haven, eh?-to get a better look. Maybe not marble, but what I was looking at was definitely large, stone and a pillar, kind of like the ones on the buildings in D.C. This time curiosity more or less overrode me, and I was marching toward one the columns for a closer look before I realized I had left the trees. I was halfway to one of them before I realized I was on path-an honest-to-god paved footpath with tall Roman... no, not Roman. _Greek_columns. Huh, I guess reading through the history book during the teacher's Charlie Brown lectures worked out for me. Now where in the world is there a stretch of woods that ends in ancient Greek architecture?

It probably wasn't a good idea to move closer to the tall stones, but I didn't really feel anything wrong or dangerous about them. I guess, seeing as there were mythological beasts running around schools and teleporting through trees, a pillar out of place was far from the most dangerous thing I could run into. So I followed my gut and took a closer look, and maybe I could even manage to get a better view on those buildings in the distance- gah!

Well, I tried to take a closer look, but I nearly walked straight into a tall, bulky guy I didn't even notice until I was eating his shirt. "Outta the gods-damned way," he grunted as he shouldered past me, sending me half-stumbling off to the side of the path.

I turned to glare at the guy and knew in an instant he was one of those jock types. After all, normal human beings didn't have shoulders that resembled a small truck, and the big **5**on his back, like a sports jersey, didn't help his case. I bit back a comment as I remembered exactly how I had no idea where I was, and settled for imagining hitting him in the face with a basketball. As much as I wanted to ask what kind of tough guy wears a big orange t-shirt and dorky blue sorts, it didn't see like a good idea to be starting fights in strange places. Probably better to figure out exactly where I was before I start making people mad, right?

'Exactly where I was' was about as far up in the air as a stealth bomber, and slowly getting closer to low orbit with each step I took down the paved road. Greek columns, marble buildings off in the distance, and I was beginning to find people ambling here and there, moving things or going from Point A to Point B- and it was all organized like a perfectly normal summer camp! There weren't a _lot _of these apparent campers, but there were enough to let me draw the comparison. It dawned on me as I walked that there was still snow falling, but it was nowhere near as heavy as the Connecticut snowfall I'd been in only an hour ago. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't complaining.

Soon I started getting a little too close to the huge ring of buildings up the path-almost like temples-for comfort, so I swung off of the path and crunched through the snow to explore in a different direction. More than a couple people had seen me as I walked by and none of them had tried to kill me yet, but the presence of swords and even a few spears was enough to convince me that starting that fight was definitely not a good idea.

The first thing I noticed once I picked my direction was that there was actually some kind of field down that way, blocked off by the waist-height wooden fences that you see in farms. You know, the ones every videogame character in existence seems to have difficulty hopping over. The second thing I noticed, as I got closer, was that there was a trio of people perched up on the fence. A few of them reached back to nab something off of one of the plants while the one in the middle leaned back to talk to someone on the other side of the fence, and I stopped to watch for a minute. The vague figure standing on the field-side of the fence was making some big gestures but nothing was exploding yet, so I figured being social couldn't hurt.

"... go worry about the rest of your field then, if the strawberries are so valuable, dear? You can't tell me Chiron will throw as big a fuss as you are if you drag him out here for a couple lousy pieces of fruit?" I heard as I walked within earshot.

The speaker and her tone of voice immediately made me frown, and after a a quick inspection I figured out why. Tall girl, jeans that looked about fifteen minutes old at absolute most, a pink hoodie tossed over her orange t-shirt, and sleek brown hair I could tell was done up with clips and conditioner even at a distance.

Great. Cheerleaders.

Of course she looked over and noticed me, eyes sweeping me up and down like people usually do when they're sizing up a piece of clothing as opposed to another human being. "Alright sweetie," I heard her say to the other girl just behind the fence, without really looking at her. A quick look confirmed that said girl was her exact opposite; light brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, wearing scuffed jeans and an orange sweatshirt that was a couple sizes too big-why couldn't I have walked up on _her _side of the fence? "Get back to your little play garden before I start getting annoyed." I offered the girl with the ponytail an apologetic look, to which she just shook her head and shot a dirty look at the trio for my benefit before going off to get back to the strawberry plants.

In a display of entirely unnecessary grace, the tan-skinned girl hopped off the fence to saunter up to me, followed by a pair of flunkies I might have actually been able to tolerate were it not for their choice in role model. She wasn't tan, I realized as she put on a pearly-white smile, but of some kind of Asian ancestry or another, . "You must be new to the camp, hon. I'm Drew, daughter of Aphrodite and one of the more interesting people to know around here."

"Think he's been chosen yet?" one of the two girls just behind Drew asked in the ditzy blonde way that makes everybody with a working brain cringe. Drew shot the girl one of _those _looks over her shoulder, but I managed to piece a working answer together from what I'd overheard.

"No," I said, careful not to sound too quick but not lagging so much between each word it sounded like I was reading off of a script, "just got here a little bit ago. The satyr who brought me here is looking for Chiron, he told me to just wander around that ring of buildings until they found me." I paused for a moment, leaning off to the side for a cough to hide a momentary break in my story. "We ran into a couple of really, really big dogs on the way here, so Sylvus is letting me take it easy and catch a breather instead of carting me around the place," I said after coming back up. There, a little bit of truth in with the lie and with any luck they wouldn't figure out the difference.

Drew nodded, and it took most of my willpower not to let out a sigh of relief when she didn't call me on the lie. "I could show you around the place for him," she offered, pink-lidded eyes flitting from side to side to meet either of the other girls' for a moment. The two of them took a moment to giggle, probably at some joke I'd missed while I was listening to Drew, and headed off to go do... well, I wasn't really sure what. My attention snapped back to the dark-haired demigod as soon as she spoke again. "It's really no fun to be here without any good friends, after all. Besides, you look like an interesting guy, so I'm sure there's _something_we could talk about."

I thought about that for a moment, and then shrugged my consent. "Why not? Been sort of a rough day, I actually could stand to just..." The rest of that thought was cut off by a voice in the distance, and Drew frowned as we both looked towards the source. A blonde guy about my size, clad in the same orange shirt I'd been seeing around the place and a pair of jeans that were just beginning to fade from age, was calling for Drew. As he got a little closer I saw the girl who'd been keeping an eye on the fields a few steps behind him and off to the side, walking along at the same pace. She must have gone to get the guy-

"Chris, could you please just sort this out before I end up with pink eyeliner on my knuckles and dishes for a month?"

So his name was Chris. Thank you, girl with the ponytail, and remind me not to mess around in your field from now on. "Alright, what's all the trouble?" he asked with a smile, though from the look in his blue eyes it seemed like he already knew the answer.

"Oh, it's nothing, " Drew told him before gesturing a pink-sleeved arm my way, "I just found a new guy wandering around. He looked a bit lost, I figured he could use a friendly hand and a delicate touch to get eased in."

"Well hey, at least you kept him out of the strawberry patch," he said with a grin, bringing an immediate frown to the Asian demigod's glossed lips. As if nothing were wrong he continued, "I can take him over to the Big House; I've got a free couple of hours right now. Don't you have some sword practice you should be doing, or did that end early?"

By now Drew's frown was something just shy of a scowl, and I narrowed my eyes. Who the hell is this guy, coming in and breaking up a perfectly helpful conversation? I didn't even get to introduce myself before he came over, and now Drew's pissed and walking off. "Hey, listen," I said, the fact that I suddenly had to adjust to talking to someone my own height not serving to make me any less annoyed. "I appreciate the offer, I really do, but she and I were right in the middle of talking."

The lightly tanned blonde guy turned to shoot what I'm assuming was a questioning glance back to the field-girl, because I saw her nod and then roll her eyes at whatever idea she'd just confirmed. "And I suppose she did a lot of the talking?" Chris asked as he turned back to me. "Alright, backtrack a little bit and just think about walking up to her again. Play that over in your head."

I wanted to bite at him with some kind of remark or another, but something did strike me as those first few moments started playing in my head. I saw her and her friends sitting up on fence as I walked up, that wasn't weird. The three of them were wearing a hell of a lot of pink, but it wasn't that bad. It was only a little annoying, not like all the cheerleaders at school who've got big globs of pink lipstick and eyeliner-

... Wait. She _was_made up beyond all reason, I realized as I went over her again-and it was no less annoying than usual. Come to think of it, a lot of things about her rubbed me the wrong way. They had as soon as I saw her, but then they didn't after I started talking to her.

Gah, why did I even stick around to talk? I knew she was unbearable as soon as I locked eyes with the girl in the orange hoodie! What the hell just happened?

"Welcome back," said hoodie-girl just a bit uncharitably. She came over to give me a friendly pat on the back, some of that unamused tone finally draining out of her voice as she asked, "Got your head on straight, now?" The look in her eyes was one of concern, though it was admittedly the kind of annoyed concern you might have for a guy who just stubbed his toe on that rock you told him to look out for.

I raised a hand to rub at my sinuses, grumbling incoherently for a minute. "I'm not sure my head's been on straight for the past three or four hours," I finally managed to answer, a little more snappish than I actually intended. "I just hiked through the woods for an hour after watching someone get killed by my flying English teacher, a guy with goat hooves kicked me in the chest so he could make a tree eat me, and good god why do I feel like I just quoted a book character, somewhere?" I finally finished that near-run on sentence by shouting the last few words, throwing my arms up in the air and letting them slap back down against my sides. There was some not-so-concealed giggling from the girl, and I whipped around to keep ranting at her when Chris caught my shoulder.

"Hey, listen," he started, raising the other hand as he began to speak, "Trust me, what you're describing isn't so odd around here. Pretty much everybody who's come through this Camp has had something at least that hectic happen to them before they got here." He gave me a minute to process that before continuing with, "Now that we've got you out of the hands of the Wicked Witch, I can get you to the Big House. You can talk to Chiron, get sorted out and take a breather for a little while, yeah?"

I let my head and shoulders slump at that, muscles showering me with a sudden gratitude I hadn't been expecting at the release of tension. The guy had a point, never mind that his voice was a warm, friendly sort that reminded me a bit of the nice feeling you get sitting in the sun on a spring day-scratch that, maybe early summer. I was already here, so I suppose getting an idea of what the place was about and talking to the guy in charge wasn't such a bad idea. "Alright," I said as I lifted my head back up, "as long as I don't have to talk to any hypnotizing cheerleaders again."

About ten minutes later Chris and I were coming up on what looked like the largest farmhouse in the world as he finished explaining, "... and right next to that is the tennis court. I'm convinced that the nets like to move a few inches while people are playing, but Chiron insists they're normal." I took a minute to stare up at the building, which somehow managed to be both comforting with its sky blue paint and simple construction, but entirely overwhelming with its size. I wondered how many cans of paint they had to buy to get this thing all done before what Chris-a son of Apollo, he told me as we were walking-said caught up with me.

"Am I the only person who's ever wondered how you can have things as drastically different as a tennis court and lava-covered climbing wall in the same camp?" I asked, brow furrowing as I tried to compare the two in my head. One was normal, and one was... suicidal. I tried to wrap my mind around the miles of difference between the two, getting as far as asking, "I mean, how does that even... ?" before I decided to just shake my head and stop wasting the bit of sanity I still had left.

The blonde just shook his head and laughed, gesturing toward the steps. "Chiron'll be in his office," he explained, right before Fate decided to prove him dead wrong. Thankfully, it was the 'voices from around the corner' kind of wrong, and not 'let's try to kill you again' wrong. We heard the sounds of earnest conversation as we walked up the half-dozen stairs to the wide wooden deck that seemed to wrap entirely around the Big House.

"... more or less finished getting everyone together, and I need to start getting the gear." The voice belonged to a tall man, clad in a light breastplate that actually looked like steel as opposed to what Chris had described to me as 'Celestial Bronze'. I noticed the mail pants and gauntlets he was wearing, sure, and even someone blind in one eye could pick out the sword on his belt, but my attention immediately snapped to something... well, unexpected. The man had a pistol holstered at the right side of his belt, somehow fitting in with all the rest of the medieval-looking gear, and just the sight of something so modern and _normal_dashed away the last bit of the surreal feeling that had been lingering in my mind since I got here.

I couldn't help but blurt out, "Is that guy carrying a Colt around?" as the man and the huge white centaur he was talking to got a few steps closer. It occurred to me how casually I just identified another used-to-be-mythical creature, but the guy with the gun was demanding more of my attention at the moment.

Both of them chuckled at that, and the centaur answered with, "I gave up trying to get him to hand it over years ago. A new arrival?" he added questioningly, hooves giving one final 'clop' against the huge porch as he came to a halt. Chris nodded in response, and the horseman turned brown eyes that were both kind and weighty with innumerable years onto me. "In that case, welcome to Camp Half-Blood," Chiron greeted me with a nod. "Just a moment, and I can help you get settled in."

"Ah, I'll get out of your hair," the armored man said as he brushed a strand of his own back out of the way. He took a moment to look me over before making a thoughtful sort of 'hrm' sound and looking to Chiron. "I can hunt down one of the Hephaestus kids on my own, you should get this one inside and sit him down; he's got that look about him, like there's one hell of a story to tell."

Chiron reached out to shake the man's offered hand as he said, "I wondered if I was the only one who saw it. Take care of yourself, Marcus, and tell Ariana I said to keep out of trouble."

Whoever Ariana was, the idea of her keeping out of trouble made the guy crack up as he walked away.

A handful of minutes and an introduction later and I was sitting down for what felt like the first time in my life, nursing a cup of coffee as if it were the last one on the planet. Trust me, when you sit down and find coffee after freezing and having your life threatened, you never, ever want it to go away. Chiron took a few minutes to slide his lower body into a mock-wheelchair with a pair of legs before rifling through a small filing cabinet next to his desk, and soon came back up with a sheet of paper and some kind of laminated chart. "First thing's first, Patrick" he said, setting the chart on the desk in front of me. "Do any of these symbols look familiar to you? An odd fondness, or a tug in your gut?"

I took another sip of the coffee as I leaned forward, lowering the mug so I could take a look at the chart. Trident, anvil, tree, a different tree... I shrugged and said, "Well, other than feeling like there's a few missing, I can't really tell you anything about it. You've got a sun and no moon."

The centaur gave me an odd look from across the table, as if he wasn't really expecting that answer, but took the sheet back without complaint. He set the second sheet in front of me, and the first thing I did was snatch the thing up and flip it over. Chiron chuckled, as if he'd seen the reaction in the past, and assured me, "There is only one side. It's just a short questionnaire, I promise."

I took another, bracing swig of coffee before setting the mug down, flipping the sheet back over. There was the basic line for name, age and gender on top, like any other survey you might find being passed around in school, and then a whole lot of questions about things I didn't even know could happen to a person outside of a crazy TV show or an acid trip. "I... can't answer half of this," I said, a frown tugging my lips down.

"I've seen all manner of strange things in my lifetime, Patrick. You don't have to worry about-"

"No," I interrupted, looking back up after another scan of the paper, "I mean I can't answer half of it. Nothing remotely close has ever happened to me, and I've even got baby pictures with both my parents in the frame. Same people I've been growing up with for the past seventeen years."

Chiron looked about the way Sylvus did when I told him the same thing: confused and incredulous. He didn't pry anywhere near as much, though, instead reaching down to go through one of the drawers of his desk. He muttered to himself, digging through who-knows-what for a few seconds, before coming back up with something in his hand. "Take a sip of this. Just enough to wet your tongue," he told me as he revealed the shiny bit of silver to be a small flask, offering it to me over the desk.

I looked at the flask for a moment, and then gave the centaur holding it a cautious glance, before reaching out to take it. After all, I figured as I unscrewed the cap and lifted it to my lips, I survived a pack of huge dogs and a teacher who could fly, why not-

I dropped the flask almost before I realized I drank out of it, coughing so hard I couldn't sputter the first curse to come to mind. Golden liquid spilled from the flask as it landed, splattering over the table and floor-and making me stand up so fast that my chair went skidding back, to get away from it. "What the hell was in there?" I managed, the words just a little bit thick on account of my tongue still throbbing like I'd dipped it in boiling water.

Chiron sat there for a moment, watching the faintly gold liquid drip down the edge of his desk before answering, in a tone of utter disbelief, "The nectar of the gods."

I was going to ask him why he just tried to burn my tongue off with magical acid when a decidedly unimpressed voice chimed in from by the doorway. "He's clearly not related to us if he can't even handle the watered down stuff, now is he?" I looked up to find a pudgy looking man in quite possibly the most ridiculous looking outfit I'd ever seen. Bright green shoes and a leopard-print track suit walked toward me, their owner looking at me like I was trying to juggle bowling pins and hitting myself in the head with them. "And you say you beat a Fury with your bare hands?" he asked in a similar tone.

I started to defend myself, and then realized I _hadn't _mentioned that to anyone since I got here. "Hrm? Oh, no, I suppose you didn't, I just picked that one out of your head, myself. My apologies, Paul," he followed up, in a way that just didn't sound apologetic at all. In fact, it was a little bit insulting that he got my name wrong, but pointing that out to a guy who could read minds didn't- "Seem like a good idea. No, it isn't," the man followed up, voice profoundly disinterested.

… God _dammit._


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** _So, this is Shrrg again. We were going to write an author note, but Will disappeared-that's Spiffy to all you readers out there. Anyway, there's not much to say except to thank Xed for letting us borrow the Chart O'Gods and announce that nothing else will be borrowed from anyone else's fandom. From here, it's all Guardian._

I'm sorry, is a man not allowed to watch some awesome World of Warcraft cinematics for a geek moment or two? And _you_have no ground to stand on about disappearing, Jo!

Anyway, that aside, she's right. Nothing will be borrowed in quite this manner, from here on out. However, there will be plenty of geeky references to catch! Now go read, before Shrrg hijacks my damned author's note-

_William. Let the nice people-_

NO! I SAY IT! _**Go read!**_

* * *

><p>"<em>Gods<em>, Mister Appleton," the leopard-spotted gym teacher chided, arching a brow. He gave me an appraising look-that is, appraising in the way one determines whether or not an ant on the sidewalk is worth stepping on.. He must have decided against the squashing after a few moments, because he continued on to say, "If you are going to invoke us, at least have the courtesy to invoke all of us."

I took a long moment to fully process the fact that someone had just read my mind, gotten my name wrong twice, and then claimed to be a god-and another moment to come to terms with the fact that, given the circumstances, there was a very good chance the claim actually _wasn't_just a claim and that I shouldn't try to correct him. Somewhere in that time, my mouth decided to drop some words in the air of its own accord, and I asked the man, "But it's not very likely that any of you would listen either way, is it?"

I... just snarked at a god. I was really glad I didn't regret my life, because after that there's no way I'd have time to.

The still-nameless deity made a thoughtful sound as he gave me another good look, as if finding some little detail he hadn't seen before. "Smarter than your average bear, eh?" he asked with a very sudden lack of sarcasm. "Keep that, boy," I was instructed as violet eyes bore into mine. "You might just need it."

By the time I opened my mouth to start asking what suddenly kept him from rolling his eyes every three words, the leopard-print tracksuit and its owner were back out the office door, leaving quite an awkward silence behind.

"You are mortal, then," Chiron spoke up after a few seconds. He must have pulled himself back out of the wheelchair-dummy some time during the last few minutes, because there was a large mass of centaur in front of me as opposed to a seemingly crippled forty-some year old man. A low sound of consideration rumbled from Chiron's throat as he looked over at the door, and then back to me as he noted, "Lord Dionysus doesn't usually go out of the way interact with people less than a couple of centuries old. Though, I suppose, given the circumstances..." The brown mane of his hair flew a bit as Chiron shook his head, looking back to me with honest, non-bug-squashy interest.

I met his calculating gaze, probably looking about as confused as I felt. I voiced that confusion with a tactful, articulate, and not at _all_ pathetic, "What... I... just... What is going _on?_" I didn't feel that got the entire point across, though, so I followed through on the question with some clarification, practically ranting as I crossed the study at Chiron's flank. "In the past six hours I've watched somebody die, been packaged up and delivered to a place I never knew existed, ran from a pack of dogs the size of trucks, and then gotten called the wrong name by a god after he read my mind. Twice!"

I looked over at the centaur, taking a breath to ready myself for the next salvo of my rant-and then I ran into the door to the office. It took a minute for me to realize that as I stumbled back, blinking and staring at the wooden surface in front of me. Hello, door.

A warm chuckle sounded from off to one side as a muscled arm reached over to the doorknob, twisting and opening it as Chiron's voice offered, "After you, Patrick. We'll talk outside, I think you could use the fresh air." Some forward locomotion was involved from there, maybe a turn or two, and soon we were out on the same deck from before I came inside. Nothing had changed in the time we had been in there... nobody else was dead... no monsters.

I exhaled more breath than I thought I was even capable of holding, shoulders slumping and my neck suddenly a whole lot more grateful without all the tension. I had a _lot _of questions all burning at me, like why Amanda died when she was the demigod, how come Sylvus hadn't come with me, where the hell was I and how could I get back home, and what was I supposed to do as the one normal guy among a bunch of gods' kids. I wrestled around with each of those questions for a bit, trying to figure out which one I should ask first, and eventually just decided to let one fall out of my mouth.

"Why did you burn my tongue?"

Okay, didn't expect it to be that one.

If Chiron hadn't been either, he didn't show it. In fact, he nodded as if I asked a perfectly normal question about math, or chemistry, or something that _didn't_have to do with hydrochloric acid of the gods. "A bit of a gamble on my part," the centaur admitted. "Thankfully, as Lord Dionysus said, that nectar was diluted. Half-bloods are more than capable of handling it in reasonable amounts, which is why I keep that flask in my desk." A little more apologetically, he added on, "There has never been a situation quite like yours before, thus worrying about someone drinking too much had never been an issue."

"Guess I can't argue with the logic," I said, running a hand back through my hair. Granted, I couldn't argue with it because I was still trying to figure out why I even ended up here to begin with if I wasn't a god's kid, but whatever. My tongue tingled as I tried to work out how that stuff could be anything but painful to drink for anybody, half-blood or no. I put it out of my mind when my tongue went from tingling to throbbing. "Might want to water it down a little bit more," I suggested, finally turning to fully face the camp's director. "I don't think drinking straight hot sauce would have sucked that much."

Chiron gave a smile you only develop when you've dealt with kids-lots and lots of kids-and opened his mouth to say something. For a minute I thought that 'something' was the sound of a blazing fire, but the centaur closed his mouth and the sound kept going. In fact, it was getting louder, too, almost like it was...

… getting closer. Of course it was.

And then _it_roared overhead, and I made the mistake of looking up. I snapped my head back down with a yelp, rubbing at my eyes with one hand while the other one shot out to grab some part of the horse-half of Chiron before I stumbled. What looked like a small sun roared over the Big House, melting the weather vane, and landed somewhere farther off with a crash, splash, and the hiss of a few hundred gallons of water evaporating all at once. I let go of my eyes and Chiron's side in that order, blinking a few times, and looked over to where I'd heard the crash.

Now I don't claim to be able to run faster than a horse and I don't have even the slightest hope of it ever happening, but I'm pretty sure the reason I was halfway to the half-evaporated lake before Chiron caught up to me was because I took off before he had time to think about it. Hell, I took off before _I_even had time to think about it. I started hearing the sound of galloping off behind me, and looked over my shoulder to find Chiron making up the lost time pretty quickly. "No," I shouted back to him, unneccessary as he was cantering to a stop even as I spoke. "It's not safe." That was the truth, too; I'd just gotten out of a life-threatening event, so I had no idea why I was running towards what was probably, the way this day was turning out, an alien crash site.

There was a feeling in my gut that felt suspiciously like something rolling its eyes at me to stop worrying about it and keep going, and for a second I thought Chiron was reading my mind when he said, "You are more than welcome to check the scene, if you're really set on it." I shot him a questioning look, and after a moment of visible consideration, with generously applied care and tact evident in his voice, he clarified, "I will need to respectfully ask that Lord Dionysus refill the lake in a... controlled manner."

"Controlled... oh, right," I said, wincing as the meaning dawned on me. Dionysus was the god of alcohol and madness. Asking him to do anything gently probably took some convincing. Not wanting to take the chance that the aforementioned god was reading my mind even from over here, I nodded and turned back toward the lake-turned-landing pad. The steam had pretty much stopped rising once I finished jogging over there, and I saw a good dozen slightly shaky people climbing out of the passenger-side of a red sports car. I was in the middle of wondering how that many people could fit in one sports car when I blinked, and then there was a bus bobbing on the water instead.

I didn't question it.

What I did question was the strange gut feeling I got when I caught site of a blonde guy who couldn't have been much older than me stepping back into the bus. For a second I thought it was Chris, but looking at Chris didn't make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I squinted at the bus as I got closer to the group next to it, wondering who this guy was and why he was making me so edgy. The bus turned back into a car, prompting me to look away to avoid being blinded by any more fireballs, and it dawned on me that I had the same feeling when Dionysus walked into the office. That meant I was looking at Chris' dad, the sun god himself... well, now I was looking at his car flying through the air, but whatever.

The flying car, I realized, was the most normal part of my day. I decided not to think about that either.

A fast, excited voice made me look back down to find a group of younger kids headed by girl in a silver jacket and the satyr-shaped source of her annoyed expression, coming in my direction.

"... but you guys would know all about how she does that, wouldn't you? You probably think I'm silly for asking, right? I mean, getting to camp out in the woods all the time and being with Lady Artemis, you really have..." Oh dear actually-existing and hopefully merciful gods, I could immediately see why the girl looked like she was contemplating homicide.

"Uh, hey," I said over the gangly-looking satyr, hoping to shut him up for even just a few seconds. "Ridiculous question, I know, but are you guys alright?" He stopped to nod, grabbing his big rasta hat to stop it flying off his head as it bobbed eagerly.

"Oh, yeah!" he gushed. "That sort of thing happens all the time to us satyrs, we're used to it! We're the engine behind Camp Half-Blood, you know-we're the ones who go all over the country finding heroes and fighting evil, so stuff like that doesn't even _phase_us! And I bet Zoë's seen way more interesting stuff, she's-"

"Okay!" I said, hurriedly cutting him off as I fought an urge to clamp a hand over his mouth, "Just... checking. So, ah..." I glanced over to the girl again, getting a much better look now that she was closer. She had dark hair in a braid that hung down to her waist, a silver band around her brow, and a look on her face that could have frozen the lava wall. There was a regal air about her, even as cold as her expression was, that I just couldn't pin the origin of. Of course, maybe I couldn't pin it because she was stalking away from me, followed by the rest of the group.

"...Nice to meet you..." I muttered dryly as the last one even went so far as to bump me out of the way with her shoulder. "Fine," I grunted to myself as I turned to watch them. "You can keep the freakin' satyr."

"They're not as bad as they seem," a voice said from behind me as a hand gave me a pat on the shoulder. I looked to my right and found the man Chiron had been talking to earlier, armor and all, watching the girls head toward the ring of temple-sized cabins. He directed a kind smile my way, raising tree branch-sized arms up to fold over his breastplate. I answered with an unconvinced grunt as I looked the armored man up and down, realizing just how big he really was. The guy was only a few inches taller than me, but he was close to twice my size around the shoulders with the breastplate on, and he couldn't have weighed less than two-hundred pounds without all the armor.

He looked over, chuckling with the same kind of warmth Chiron did as he grinned. "It just takes a couple centuries for them to warm up to someone male, but once they do you couldn't ask for a more dedicated bunch," the man assured me, a surprisingly friendly light in his blue eyes for someone who could probably bench me without much effort. "I'll introduce you once they get settled in, if you're up for it, stranger."

"Why are you in all that armor if they're so nice?" I asked, unable to keep from lightening up in the face of such honest friendliness.

"Hrm?"

I reached over and tapped the mailed leather gauntlet on one of his forearms. "All this," I clarified, "makes you look like you're going to either a Renaissance fair or a war."

"Oh, right," he said, looking down as if actually noticing he was wearing the plate and mail for the first time. Large shoulders shrugged up and down as he made a vague sound and answered, "Habit. I get into a lot of trouble when they're not keeping an eye on me." I arched a brow at that, but he just shrugged again before extending a hand and asking, "All that aside, got a name you don't mind me using?"

I reached out to take his hand, shaking it up and down once as I answered, "Pat Alexander." I couldn't tell you why, but it suddenly dawned on me how gender-neutral my name really was. Good thing I was hard to mistake for a girl.

The man nodded, but before he could answer-and almost before he could let go of my hand!-a red and silver blur impacted his side with an excited shout of "MARCUS!" Any other man might have toppled over, but the brick wall named Marcus just caught the blur, which had thrown its arms around him, and twirled it around in a bear hug.

"Ari!" he laughed happily, squeezing a little squeak out of what soon revealed itself to be girl no older than ten, wearing an oversized silver jacket like the group of girls who'd breezed right past me a minute ago.

"You were gone a long time this time!" she exclaimed excitedly. "We killed a whole nest of drakens and I rigged Phoebe's flamethrower so only I can use it and some half-blood crashed Apollo's bus and I got to rob a _bank!_" The girl was actually leaping up and down by the time she finished her sentence, eventually getting so much air with each hop that Marcus stopped her with a hand on top of her head.

"A bank, Ari? You know I need to tell Artemis if you took more than a thousand dollars, right?" Marcus mock-scolded, making a show of shaking the finger of his free hand at her. The disapproving frown turned into the kind of smile somebody's uncle would give when he buys them ice cream, and its owner offered, "But tell you what; I'll let it go this time if you say hello to Patrick."

She turned around to regard me, head tilting in an impishly curious manner. I was suddenly glad I hadn't grabbed my wallet today, because I was very positive that it would have ended up missing for an hour and about twenty bucks lighter upon its mysterious return.

"I dunno..." the redheaded girl said after a minute, looking back over to Marcus as if to criticize somebody on the friend they brought home. "He's kind of a boy..."

At this point I couldn't stop myself from slapping a hand against my face, and from the sounds of it Marcus couldn't stop himself from laughing at my expense. "He's a really nice boy, I promise," I heard him chuckle, and lowered my hand in time to see him crouch down next to the much smaller girl. "And besides, what am I?"

"You're a _Marcus,_" she answered incredulously. "_Duh."_

"Does that mean I'm manlier than you?" I asked, pointing out, "I mean, at least I'm _kind of_a boy, apparently, and you do have longer hair." My grin, by the end of that sentence, could be described as eating a certain substance better left unnamed.

Marcus drew himself up to his full height at the slight against his dirty-blonde hair, crossing both thickly muscled arms over his chest as he retorted, "Oh, alright, _Patricia_. Mid-neck is not that long, and _you_don't have a beard."

"I shave!" I said defensively, trying to turn the impromptu contest back in my favor, but it was too late. Even as closely trimmed as it was, I couldn't really argue with the beard that was much more full than I could ever get my own facial hair to be.

"Ariana!" a girl's voice called out from farther ahead, startling me with the sheer amount of authority behind it-and the slight murderous undertone didn't really help. The minuscule redhead in question winced sheepishly as she turned around to face the opposite direction and the dark-haired girl from earlier... and the satyr who followed her.

He was _still _talking.

You know, even with the cold shoulder she gave me earlier, I really felt sorry for the girl-whose name must have been Zoë, because her admirer babbled it no less than four times-after hearing what she'd been dealing with this whole time. In about six seconds, the satyr had managed to suggest his favorite restaurant, wonder what it must be like going hunting with Artemis (goddess of the Hunt, go figure) and even ask if Zoë would like to go on a date-

_SMACK!_

I cringed when the slap landed, uttering a sound of sympathetic pain as the satyr brought his hand up to his cheek... and then I almost gaped in disbelief when he looked back at his hand with awe. I mean, I know what it's like to want a girl to touch me, but... seriously? I have absolutely no problem admitting I took a half-step back when I saw the look on _her_face, because, quite frankly, I value my life and would rather not tempt the murderous looking girl into taking it away. Marcus decided to step in at this particular moment, placing himself between the satyr and the enraged object of that satyr's affection, and moved to lead the rambling goat-boy away with kind instructions to 'go tell Chiron that the hunters were moved in for a while'.

I followed the tracks that the unwilling satyr's hooves were making as he dug them into the dirt, marking him as suicidal in my head before looking back up to the pair of girls in silver jackets. "So... never ask you on a date, right?" I offered, breaking the silence after a moment.

Zoë directed a frigid glare at me before looking down at Ari, who gave an apologetic grin and a half-wave.

"Ari..." she said warningly. "What have you done, what kind of explosives did it involve, and did you at least manage to remember our conversation regarding the health hazards of nuclear radiation?" Her words were carefully enunciated, with a strange accent-almost like she picked something up from a few different places.

The little redhead huffed. Counting the questions off on her fingers, she replied, "Nothing dangerous, none, and that was just one time!"

"I kept her out of trouble, Zoë," I heard Marcus call from farther down the hill, plate and mail clinking together as he walked back up toward us. He shot a quick look over his shoulder, muttering something or another about satyrs under his breath, and then looked back to us. "Kept your new Hunter out of trouble, too. According to Bianca you were trying so hard to get away from that satyr that she lost track of you," he added, sounding vaguely amused.

Bianca, I assumed, was the girl following a good half-dozen steps behind, clad in the same silvery-looking jacket that all the other boy-hating girls happened to have on. You know, I was really starting to feel outnumbered here. It was almost like someone was going out of their way to make sure every single one of the seemingly infinite, feminist girl scouts bumped into me. Don't get me wrong; I don't mind a girl who's proud to be a girl, I just don't particularly like getting death glares from people I haven't even actually met yet.

"H-Hey, Zoë," the girl said nervously, giving a meek little wave. Call me a cynic, but I was honestly a bit shocked that she didn't start off by disapproving of me. I gave her a look over, the annoyed edge draining out of me as I caught something. I almost didn't pin it until I glanced back over to Zoë, but then it hit me just how _experienced_the others were compared to this hushed-up new girl. What kind of stuff did this girl scout militia do for a living?

More importantly, when the hell did I start analyzing people like I was going to have to fight them? I mean, I kept my eyes on the jocks in the hallway, but this new train of thought was something entirely different.

Zoë gave an exasperated sigh, like an older sister who was called to babysit at the last minute, and with the loss of that ice-cold glare I realized how _young_she was. Sixteen, absolute tops, but damn if she didn't look like she was carrying the weight of the world itself in her brown eyes.

"Ari McMurphy," she sighed, sounding a lot more human now than she had before. "What am I going to do with thee?"

Ari, who had been clicking absently through the menu on a cheap cell phone, looked up and cocked her head thoughtfully. "Last week you were going with drawing and quartering, I think, and the week before that there was something about fire ants...?"

Zoë closed her eyes for a few seconds, and I swear I could _hear_her counting to ten. Finally, she just shook her head and ruffled Ari's hair with tired affection. Now, I'll admit that it wasn't the most diplomatic thing I've ever said, but I was beyond caring by the time I asked, "Holy crap, you're actually capable of physical contact that isn't violent?"

Ah. Welcome back, Glare of the Ice Queen.

"Bianca, Ari, come." she said shortly. Bianca glanced at me before falling in beside Zoë, and the little redhead huffed as she shoved the phone back in her pocket.

"Bye, Marcus," she sighed, managing to get her arms most of the way around his treelike bulk. I couldn't help but snicker when he squeezed another little squeak out of Ari in return, lifting her up to over-exaggerate the bear hug before dropping her back down to her feet. She spared me a speculative look before following the other two down the hill.

"Alright, what's the deal?" I asked Marcus after the trio was safely out of earshot, causing him to look over. I tossed an arm out toward the departing girls. "The silver girl scout street gang. Do they hate boys, or just me?" Marcus gave me a nod as he folded the mail-and-muscle arms over his chest.

"The Hunters of Artemis," he said after a thoughtful exhale, "don't hate men just for the fact that they're men. They're actually quite capable of growing to trust a boy or two, after enough time." Marcus frowned, like he was thinking hard about how to word something, and eventually settled on, "Many of them, Zoë especially, just have their own reasons for not being fond of us. Good reasons, but sometimes they're a bit more zealous than they need to be."

I suppose I couldn't argue with that; I wasn't exactly innocent of generalizing, myself. There was just something about his tone, though, like he was talking about something a lot longer-running than just some high school cheerleader troubles. "They seem alright with you. Especially Ari," I pointed out, meeting his blue eyes curiously.

A grin slipped onto his lips at that, and soon the larger man was chuckling. Mark's chuckle really made him seem like the kind of friendly guy you could get along with, but even that wasn't quite enough to keep me from being blindsided by his response.

"I've been with them since the Crusades."


	4. Chapter 4

_Ahem. So...Shrrg here. Sorry about the wait; we've both been REALLY busy. Seriously. You try juggling four writing projects at the same time and see how it works out for ya. Anyway, we won't bore you with a long author's note-enjoy!_

In a word: School. Bleh. And aside from that, I decided to take a short break that turned into three weeks before I noticed that it had-and then it took another three weeks for us to get the chapter written because of aforementioned busy-ness. We're through it now, however (and many, many, many thanks to Shrrg for writing like... half the chapter with me), and should be back to the usual 'week-or-two' pace.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><em>The Crusades?<em>

It'd been over three hours since Marcus dropped _that _bombshell and I still did a double take just remembering the way he said it. I mean, ignoring the fact that I couldn't actually tell whether or not he was just lying for a laugh, how the hell does somebody talk about being eight centuries old like it's _nothing?_

I breathed out a long sigh, massaging my sinuses as I fell back to sit on the edge of my bed for the night. The din of the Hermes cabin's inhabitants making their last rounds of cons, petty thefts and terrible jokes at everybody else's expense had long since faded to dull background noise, and I thought back over the evening. 

I had a lot to think about.

Marcus started heading back down the hill with a wave of his arm and one of his warm chuckles. "Come on," he called over his shoulder, metal clinking and clanking softly as his plate-and-mail armor shifted around. "They're bound to be getting dinner started by now. I'll take you over to the pavilion."

I just blinked a few times, digesting the idea that a man could be over eight-hundred years old and not look older than thirty, tops. I mean, I'd heard of old men who keep themselves in good shape, but this was just all sorts of ridiculous-and that was even factoring in the new definition of 'ridiculous' that I was starting to develop after everything that had happened to me today. The clink-crunch of an armored man walking through snow started to grow faint, snapping me out of my confusion long enough to hurry after the walking, talking thirty-year-old who was apparently older than the country he was walking around in.

**"**What do you mean 'the Crusades?'" I demanded, jogging over grass and softly crunching the dusting of snow atop it. "You don't even look as old as my dad, much less- _how?_**" **

I nearly bumped right into the man as he stopped, and soon the mail-clad giant was standing before me with arms crossed, looking me up and down like he was considering something. "You are very stubbornly curious for someone who almost died twice in one day," he pointed out thoughtfully, blue eyes looking me up and down with... well, I don't know what it was. Imagine the 'cut through the B.S.' look an experienced cop has, the kind of gaze your principal has when he's telling you he can be your friend or your enemy and the weight of experienced wisdom you can see when one of your grandparents starts telling a story, all wrapped up in just a little bit of the seen-too-much stare of a soldier in Vietnam from the pictures in your history books.**  
><strong>**  
><strong>He repeated, "Stubbornly curious," almost to himself, neck-length hair waving back and forth as he nodded. A rough grunt escaped into the air, surprising me when I realized that it came from the man who, moments ago, looked like the friendliest son-of-a-... gun in the world. "I'll tell you what, Alexander," he said after a moment, voice softening a bit but startling me with the use of my last name, "I'll talk to Chiron tonight after dinner, get you to myself tomorrow afternoon. We'll talk and I'll explain a couple of things... but you'll need to do the same for me."

He turned away from me again, arms dropping back to his sides before he started leading me toward what I was starting to be able to recognize as a cluster of picnic tables-they were huge picnic tables around the biggest fire I'd ever seen that didn't involve a house, granted, but that didn't make them any less picnic-y. Marcus didn't say anything as we walked, and to be honest I was kind of glad; it's hard to talk to a man when he's got an air of hard thought and consideration weightier than even the most troubled king.

The corner of a pillow skimmed across my cheek, snapping me out of the day's events and back to the Hermes cabin. Chiron had decided to put me in here, after dinner, to keep up appearances of a new demigod. I suppose I couldn't really argue with it, what with mortals in the camp being rarer than an honest politician, but as I stretched across my bunk mattress to grab the fallen pillow, I wondered why-since the idea of taking me _home_hadn't seemed to have crossed anybody's mind-he couldn't have just kept me in the Big House.

That way I wouldn't be returning stray pillows every seventeen seconds instead of actually sleeping. "Nico," I called across the cabin, standing up for something like the third time in as many minutes, "Quit throwing pillows at...whichever Stoll that is." The kid was extremely touchy about his Mythomagic stuff, and hadn't taken kindly to having his miniatures scattered all over the place. "We can hunt them down tomorrow." I glanced around the cabin for a moment, making sure to catch the gaze of everybody looking my way before adding on pointedly, "I'm sure if anybody finds one before we do, they'll put it by your stuff."

I honestly didn't expect anyone to hold up that end of the arrangement, but it got Nico to abandon his newly acquired target. I watched with a bit of a sigh as the ten year old tossed the pillow onto the floor and pulled his blankets over his head, but I supposed harrumphing was better than yet another feathery civil war between the whole cabin-twice was more than enough for one evening. Another quick glance around to make sure nobody else was getting any ideas... and then I caught Steph's eyes for a second. What was she looking... oh, right. Yeah, I forgot about that: my clothes had mysteriously disappeared during shower hour, and unlike for Nico new pajamas hadn't appeared to take their place. (Apparently the pajama fairies didn't deliver to mortals. Jerks.) So there I was, stuck with what I'd managed to scrounge from the communal "cleaner-than-the-rest" laundry pile: sweatpants and no shirt.

Now don't get me wrong, I didn't think I looked bad or anything like that, I just... wasn't really used to actually being noticed like that. I guess that happens when you make a habit out of wearing a hoodie and loose jeans for something like five years. I cleared my throat, pulling the covers back up over myself and turning in the other direction.

Shut up, I was _not_being shy.

-**  
><strong>**  
><strong>You wouldn't have thought Marcus had been anything but cheerful over the past however-long as we started closing the last few feet before the first table. His expression softened, stride becoming a little easier as he crunched a path through toward Chiron over the snow-dusted ground. There was a friendly greeting, a quick conversation, and soon I was led over to a table. Of course, given the food, cards and firecrackers all flying around, I'm surprised there was much table left.

**"**Hermes table, all the new kids get to sit here for a while," Marcus said almost apologetically, offering a shrug before ducking under the path of a flying sparkler. Where the hell did they _get_sparklers this time of year?

I checked to make sure I wasn't in the way of any more explosives before turning back to Marcus... who was now many banquet tables away from me and safely out of range of any explosions or flying barbecue sauce. The things I grumbled as he sat down next to a few golden-haired teenagers were probably best left unrepeated.

**"**...son of a kraken," I finished. I would have tried to sneak over and sit next to Chris at what must have been Apollo's table, but nobody in the Camp was colorblind and I couldn't dye my hair from black to blonde in under a minute. Then a flimsy sauce packet flew by and I started looking for an open seat so I could keep my hair from getting dyed _barbecue._

**"**Hey, loser!" called a girl from further down the table. I bristled before I realized she wasn't talking to me. "Move your butt and let the new guy sit down!"

At a _normal_camp, there wouldn't have been any need to move. There were only a handful of kids in the Hermes cabin-two guys who looked like twins, the girl who had shouted, a young kid in an over-sized aviator jacket who was fiddling with some sort of trading cards, and me-but somehow they managed to fill up the whole banquet table on their own. One of the twins pulled back a rubber band and sent it whistling at the girl's face, then moved over cheerfully. 

I hadn't realized how incredibly, impossibly starving I was until I smelled the food. 

Apparently, even at the epicenter of insanity people need to eat, and for the first time I actually believed that this place might be blessed by the gods. Dryads and satyrs (amazing what you can get used to in a day, isn't it?) scurried around the pavilion, setting down platters of hot ribs, fresh steak, grilled drumsticks and wagon-wheel-sized pizzas with the cheese still sizzling. My stomach made a sound I'd only ever heard in monster movies. 

A nervous-looking goat-guy handed me a plate and a goblet, chirped "Welcome-to-Camp-Half-Blood!" and bolted before I could thank him. It was probably a smart reaction to anyone sitting at the Hermes table.

I helped myself to two slices of pizza and all the ribs I could fit on my plate, but before I could take so much as a bite, something stung me on the head.

**"**Ow! What the-" 

I was cut off by a "HA!" of triumph and a condescending "Better luck next time, Steph!" Rubbing my temple, I looked down at my plate and found the rubber band that my neighbor-Travis-had shot down the table a minute ago. Apparently, its intended target had been generous enough to return it, with interest. Her aim could use some work, though.**  
><strong>**  
><strong>**"**Sorry," she called down the row, sounding remarkably insincere. She stood up, and I noticed people all around were doing the same thing. 

**"**Come on," Travis said. "We have to make our offerings." At least, I thought it was Travis, before I realized that he was to my right and the voice was coming from behind me.

**"**Offerings?" piped the kid with the cards.

**"**Yep," the other Travis answered, indicating his plate. "Pick a rib, toss it into the fire, and dedicate it to whichever god your parent is."

I glanced down to my own plate, trying to determine whether I should sacrifice pizza or a piece of chicken as I asked, "And if we don't know who that is?" I mean, it's not like you could just _ask _them, so there had to be some kind of-**  
><strong>  
>"Ask them!" one of the twins, now walking off next to each other, called out. The other one laughed, and I had a moment of silence for the last of my sanity. <p>

I finally decided to put a piece of pizza to the flame while I extricated myself from the picnic table bench-those things are always a giant pain to get out of, no matter how agile you are-but that still left a major problem: Who was I supposed to make the sacrifice to?

My stomach kicked insistently at the rest of my body as if to say 'Hey, give _me _a sacrifice!', but I figured it could wait. After all, as much as it wanted tribute, my stomach wasn't an all-powerful being who could remove me from existence. As far as I knew.

Name. I needed a name. Did they frown upon blurting out the first god who came to mind? I mean, everybody knew who Zeus was...and the Hermes cabin had taken me in, but that was mostly because they had to...

And probably because I had stuff to ta-... How long had my phone been gone? I dropped my left hand and tapped the pocket, checking to see if the thing just didn't shift into a spot I couldn't feel it. Usually it rested right against my leg, and I knew I didn't drop it!

There was a familiar snicker from somewhere around waist-level. I looked down to find the little redhead from before, bright blue eyes sparking with mischief as she pulled a _very_familiar shiny-black rectangle out of her pocket. 

**"**I was wondering when you'd notice," she said casually, tossing it back. While I fumbled with the unexpected catch, she winked impishly and put a few of those silver girl scouts between us. Figures she'd hide behind all the angry uber-feminists before I could get to her.

**"**Ari." From somewhere in the silvery crowd came a tired sigh that didn't quite manage to keep out a definite note of affection. 

Ari gave an unapologetic shrug, plucking a particularly juicy rib off her plate and tossing it lightly into the flames before dodging past another pair of legs and back toward her table. I looked up to find the same silver circlet and brown eyes from before, and this time they weren't glaring at me. Zoë actually smiled slightly as the little red and silver blur disappeared again, turning her attention to the plate in her hands. She glanced it over, decided on a thick piece of steak, and tipped it into the flame with a care that bordered on tenderness. 

**"**Artemis," she murmured softly, and something about her voice caught my attention. The surrounding half-bloods had been respectful when they named their parent god; but it was the kind of respect you would give to any parent you looked up to. Zoë, on the other hand, sounded...reverent, like she was doing something a whole lot more important than burning a piece of steak.

I glanced around the sea of silver, watching each girl make her sacrifice with the same kind of care. They didn't really linger, tossing in their piece of food before heading back to the Girl Scout table-all except Zoë, who was watching the fire as if to make sure her steak burned in exactly the right way. It was a big change from the arrogant teenager who'd glared at me on the hill.

Zoë stole a quick look up high before heading back to her table. "Alright," I mumbled to myself, following her gaze up to the big, silver almost-full moon. "Why not?" I tossed my sacrificial pizza into the fire, murmuring the Greek moon goddess' name as I did. It wasn't that I was embarrassed about it, exactly, but seeing as the only other people who were tossing food in for her were the Girl Scouts, I figured being quiet about it wouldn't hurt.

Of course, once you turn around to find one of the silver Girl Scouts had been standing behind you the whole time, it doesn't really matter how quiet you were. "Ah... hi," I offered, lacking no amount of nervous awkwardness. I mean, what do you do when somebody who probably doesn't like you overhears you praying to their patron deity? Wars have been fought over that kind of thing!

Strangely, the pale blonde didn't seem to mind. After the initial shock passed, she gave a slow, pretty smile, cocking her head thoughtfully like she was inspecting me. "Hello," she replied cheerfully. There was something weird about her gaze-something just slightly _off_-but at least she wasn't trying to stab me with anything. 

Then again, I thought as I heard an impatient woof, maybe she's not the one who'd be doing the stabbing. I followed the sound down to about level with my waist, and for a moment I had to ponder a very glaring question. That is, how the hell did I not notice the wolf?

**"**_Wuff,"_it said again, irritably. 

**"**Oh, hush," chided the blonde. "You just want your dinner." Looking back up with a charming smile, she brushed a strand of hair back from her face and said politely, "I'm sorry. Owen's a bit touchy, he's not used to so many people. May I?" she added, holding up a half-rack of ribs and nodding toward the fire.

**"**Er, right. Yeah," I mumbled, stepping off to the side. The girl nodded to me, then stepped up and made her offering. Once again I was struck by the warmth in her voice, but there was something else as she spoke her goddess' name. It was like she was thanking Artemis for some huge favor that could never be fully repaid.

After a moment, she frowned slightly and lifted her head, looking around at where I'd been standing. Her wolf looked at the empty space, too, then seemed to decide that the barbecue sauce on her fingertips was more important, and also tasted better. Shrugging off whatever that had been, she wiped the wolf slobber off her hand and followed the creature back toward the Girl Scout table, scolding him lightly. 

She slipped my mind the minute I sat back down at the Hermes table and took my first, huge bite of steaming pizza.

Chiron could keep his battery acid; _this_was the nectar of the gods. 

Somewhere around the third huge slice, I came up for air. The pandemonium had resolved itself into a more normal atmosphere, even at the Hermes table; Travis, the girl with the rubber bands and Other Travis had apparently called a truce in favor of bringing out a deck of cards. Other Travis, in between bites of pizza, was explaining the rules of poker to the younger kid, Nico. I could only assume he had another deck slipped up his sleeve; not even a ten year old kid could be losing that badly in ten minutes.

Other Travis-Connor, according to Actual Travis-laid his cards on the table with a huge grin. "Royal Flush, all spades," he said to the others, drawing a frustrated groan out of Steph the rubber-band girl. The younger kid had been showing a remarkable lack of interest after the second hand, but who could really blame him with how badly the smirking twins were beating him? This time he looked down to his cards, back up to Connor's Royal Flush and down again a few times, like he thought he saw a problem but wasn't sure. I slid a little closer to look at his hand... an Ace of Spades!

**"**Find some extra cards?" I asked pointedly, tapping the kid's arm. He lowered his own cards to the table, giving an accusing 'Hah!' as he pointed to the Ace.

Both of the twins adopted offended looks, sweeping up the cards to re-deal. "I knew you didn't want to play, but cheating? I thought there was some hope for you, Nico!" one of them lamented as he shuffled the deck, making a big show of setting the duplicate Ace off to the side.

Steph wasted no time in jumping on the twins' mistake, grinning far too happily as she went on to become the ten-year-old's impromptu lawyer. I lost track after the first 'I object!', scooting back to my plate and the last piece of pizza, which had started to get cold. Thankfully pizza is one of those things you can eat at any temperature, so I had no issue with finishing off the slice.

For some reason, my goblet was empty; I don't know how the others had gotten soda, but it didn't seem to work for me. Given that I _was_at the Hermes table, I felt exactly zero guilt about nabbing Steph's cup.

While I sipped my stolen Mountain Dew, I looked around the pavilion. Our table of five was actually one of the most crowded; most tables had only two or three people, the Apollo table had four only due to the addition of Marcus, and another table inhabited entirely by blondes seemed almost crowded by comparison, with six whole demigods looking deeply worried about something. One was empty. At least two tables served only one person, picking glumly at their food and casting wistful looks at the more populated tables.

Like them, my eyes were inevitably drawn to a table about two-thirds of the way down the row. The silver-clad Girl Scouts-Hunters, the others were calling them-probably amounted to all the rest of the tables put together, and were having at least twice as much fun. A couple of them were arm-wrestling, cheered on enthusiastically by several others. A certain red and silver blur was making off with bits of food; apparently it tasted better if you stole it. Even the wolf had a couple of racks of ribs to gnaw on. It was hard to believe they were carrying bows and knives around only an hour ago, even if the girl who kept winning the arm-wrestles looked like she could bench me.

**"**Huh," I mumbled to myself. Maybe they actually _were _more like Girl Scouts once all the fighting and emergencies stopped. I finished the last of Steph's soda, setting the goblet down as I glanced over the last few people at the Hunters' table. The last one caught my attention, a little glimmer of silver right above brown eyes that must have been wandering around the same way mine were. Except... they didn't move.

No, this was the Girl Scout-Hunter, from both times before. With the feeling I got from meeting her eyes even this far away, I suddenly understood why the latter was a much better name. I could feel the same ancient experience from Marcus' eyes in Zoë's and a very dark, predatory quality that made her just as threatening. Like a wolf watching... whatever the high school senior surrounded by god-kids amounted to.

Unlike before, she didn't look through me, and the look in her eyes wasn't unthinking dismissal. She didn't seem to be embarrassed that I'd caught her watching; on the contrary, she met my look evenly, like she was evaluating me. She almost looked pleased when I didn't look away. The weird blonde girl from earlier was talking to her, leaning in earnestly, hands folded, light blue eyes wide and passionate. Her gaze still looked oddly off-focus, and she didn't seem to notice that her conversation partner was staring intently at someone across the room. Zoë's eyes were...oddly open, I realized. There was no haughty mask, no detachment; she looked like she was trying to find the answer to something terribly important, and I was it.

It was actually kind of uncomfortable. I cleared my throat awkwardly and looked away, breaking the contact to check in on the impromptu trial, which had predictably devolved into petty name-calling. Nico was eating Connor's pizza while Steph questioned Travis' masculinity, so I figured her career as a lawyer was off to a good start. 

I glanced back at Zoë, but she'd looked away again, this time talking to a different blonde while cutting what had to be a cold steak by now. She nodded in a businesslike manner, glancing down the table to the smaller of the two arm-wrestlers.

**"**That's Zoë Nightshade," someone said quietly.

I looked down. Nico, oversized aviator jacket and slumped shoulders making him look like a very sad sort of teddy bear, was pushing the crust of Connor's pizza around his plate. He was watching the Hunters too, but he looked depressed instead of curious. "Nightshade. Alright, the name explains why she keeps looking like she's thinking about killing me," I muttered, stealing another quick glance back up. "When did you run into her?"

He perked up slightly. "That's my sister!" he said proudly, pointing to a girl halfway down the Hunter's table. "Bianca." She was one of the ones who'd been arm-wrestling before. She'd apparently given up in favor of helping herself to some chicken, but she was laughing too hard to get it anywhere near her mouth. The (much) bigger girl was grinning widely and ruffling her hair.

**"**And she joined the Girl Scouts?" I asked, feeling a confused frown tug at my lips. I scanned the table again before pointing out, "They don't seem like the little brother type."

Nico deflated slightly. "Yeah," he muttered. "I can't come with them. And they don't come to Camp much, either."

I reached over to brush a few pizza crumbs off my sleeve, frowning a little harder as he said that. "I guess it can't be that bad, can it? Can't be much worse than having to go back and forth between parents: couple weeks, maybe a month apart?" I finished, reaching over to give the kid's shoulder a squeeze. He mumbled something that sounded kind of like 'Guess so', fiddling with something he'd pulled out of his pocket just a minute ago-a steel Mythomagic miniature. "You know, my brother and I play together whenever we visit each other," I said conspiratorially, grinning as I pointed out the bow-wielding figurine. "Every couple of weeks, maybe a month."

The ten year old looked back up with a bit of surprise, asking if I really did play Mythomagic. I'll admit that Nico played a lot more than I did, but the common ground cheered him up enough for us to start talking and telling stories-and let me tell you, for a ten year old kid Nico di Angelo had a lot of interesting stories.

_Whump._

A pillow thumped into the mattress again, but I didn't bother turning around to move it. I was much more focused on the one beneath my head, less and less able to focus at all with each second. 

Any bed was comfortable after a long day, and today had been anything but short.


	5. Chapter 5

Now Shrrg's gonna hate me for this, no doubt, but it's been a month and a half since I updated and gorrammit all you lot deserve a new chapter! School's almost done and I'm in a mad dash to do several things I should have done when I was supposed to do them, but nevermind that. Updates should now be a little more frequent (or at the very least not take a month), and we're finally moving out of the dull stuff and into the main plot from here.

That is to say, the main plot of Titan's Curse, which I'll be doing almost nothing to save using it as a base to get my feet wet with Shrrg's help. (Once she stops sleeping so much, the lazy cat!)

Also, before I let you all go, I apologize for any of the seemingly random spacing errors that come up. Going from Google Docs to OpenOffice and then finally to plays havoc with the text, and I'll try a little harder to fix it up before posting it. And before I forget, apparently I helped to be the inspiration for another chapter in Shrrgnien's Hunter Drabbles! Go check it out, readers!

* * *

><p>Don't mistake me for an advocate of alarm clocks, because I hate waking up with a mechanical banshee screaming in my ear as much as the next guy. However, waking up to '<em>Banana Phone<em>**'**, '_Peanut Butter Jelly Time' _and **'**_It's A Small World' _at the same time wasn't much of an improvement. I groaned and buried my head underneath my pillow, only to be buried by six or seven more thrown by my hysterical cabinmates. That didn't do much more than make me groan again and flail an arm around to stave off the feather-filled attackers, and I briefly considered just rolling over and going back to sleep for another few hours.

In fact, I think the only thing that kept me from open rebellion was a small hand lifting up the corner of my pillow. "Pat, they said they're gonna get cold water from the showers. I think you should get up before they get back," Nico told me gently, pulling the pillow up a little farther to show me a pile of clothes that were surprisingly familiar. I rubbed at my eyes, responding with a grunt that sounded almost coherent. He stuck around to poke at my arm until I grunted a second time and finally sat up, and then reminded me which direction the showers were before going to follow his own schedule for the day.

I was more or less awake by then, so I pulled on my t-shirt and hoodie before exchanging the sweatpants for jeans that looked like mine. They had all my stuff in the pockets, so I wasn't too concerned about who actually owned them. Of course, 'all my stuff' amounted to a driver's license, a cough drop, ten bucks and my almost-dead phone-nobody around here seemed to have one, which meant no chance of finding a charger-so I probably could have gone the day without those, too. The walk from the Hermes cabin to the showers only took a few minutes, so by the time I was able to wonder what I'd run into today I'd already ducked under a nozzle in an attempt to wake myself up.

It really should have bothered me that I could think about it so easily, but remembering Amanda and Sylvus didn't knock me off balance like it had the day before. Don't get me wrong, I wished I could have done more, but... I don't know. Being here, surrounded by mythical creatures and immortal gods, made everything else seem like a story, like it had all been part of some adventure movie or something. Maybe being away from the school and chucked into a new routine was keeping me from shutting down, or maybe I was just some crazy sociopath and didn't realize it yet.

I tossed a wet towel aside and reached for my pants, unsurprised with either possibility at this point. A few minutes later I was re-dressed and walking out the door-only to nearly run into something wrapped in foil and the hand holding it.

"You can eat while we walk," Marcus told me, shoving the foil thing into my hand before I had time to think. "I told you you'd be mine for the day, didn't I? Come on, you've got people to meet and things to do." On the surface, he almost sounded like an agent hurrying a busy actor; but when _you _were the one Marcus was talking to, it seemed more like a 'don't argue with the drill sergeant' vibe. I played it safe and went along with him. I opened the foil thing, which turned out to be a generously-filled breakfast burrito, and ate it as fast as I could while Marcus led me who knows where, cutting across a snow-covered volleyball court and behind the line of cabins toward what looked like a huge arena a fair ways off. I was half-asleep yet, though the cold air was waking me up pretty quickly, and I still didn't know what the hell was going on, nor did anyone seem inclined to tell me. The burrito was good, though, so I'll give him that.

I finished eating with just enough time to brush the crumbs off of my shirt and shove the foil wrapper into my pocket, and then I was walking into the arena. **  
><strong>

The thing was like a miniature Coliseum. The air was warmer in here, but not hot; it felt more like an air-conditioned room, and there was no snow on the ground. Training dummies of all kinds-some wooden with crude targets painted on them, some made of leather with straw poking out pathetically from a million stab wounds, some that looked like they'd be right at home on a Robin Hood set, and some that looked like the fake torsos you sometimes saw at karate dojos-lined the walls, leaving an open space in the middle. In between the dummies were racks of spears, swords, bows and arrows, daggers, tridents-every sort of weapon imaginable, with shields to match. Something whistled through the air.

_Thud_. **  
><strong>

I hadn't expected anyone else to be here, and definitely not the weird blonde girl from last night. She was standing at one end of the arena, smiling happily and weighing a tennis ball in her hand. The wolf she'd had with her before trotted up with an identical ball in his mouth, tail wagging. She scratched him behind the ears before throwing the second ball, which he took off after, claws scrabbling at the packed-dirt floor of the arena. **  
><strong>

At first glance, it looked like the opening scene of any 'boy and his dog' movie, except for the fact that this little blonde-haired, blue-eyed slip of a girl was throwing fastballs at an archery target from halfway across the arena and hitting the bullseye every time, all while wearing a quiet little smile like this was the perfect way to spend an easy morning, just her and her wolf training for the MLB.

The wolf picked up the tennis ball and ran it back, accepting another ruffle between the ears. The girl readied her next ball, then paused. "...Marcus?" she called warily, glancing over at us. Her wolf looked over as well, folding his ears back at her tone.

**"**Morning, Kim. Thanks for coming on such short notice."

Kim relaxed, tossing the tennis ball off to the side and patting the wolf's head reassuringly. "Don't mention it," she said, pulling a silver bow off her shoulder. I hadn't noticed it there before, and I was suddenly nervous about why she was there. If there was one thing I was picking up in this place, it was to never trust the quiet ones. "I can't spend the _whole _visit hiding in my cabin."**  
><strong>

"You could always steal my phone and change my contacts to 'Ha-ha, sucker' like Ari did," I grumbled, shooting a glare up at Marcus when he didn't laugh, but she did smile. I had to stop and take a second look when she did, suddenly realizing how pretty the girl really was. That Aphrodite camper Drew was a dolled-up, snooty cheerleader-type, but Kim was the opposite side of the coin: pleasant, kind, and genuinely beautiful, with a smile that would look at home on a Renaissance statue.**  
><strong>

"She gave your phone back," Kim pointed out. "That means she likes you. She told Zoë she even left the ten dollars in your other pocket. Tori says thanks for the cough drop, by the way."

**"**Doubt Zoë would've cared either way," I muttered. " All she's done is glare at me like I tried to steal _her _wallet."

Kim looked uncomfortable. Plate and chain shifted beside me as its owner commented, "From what I understand, she has a lot on her mind since yesterday. A new recruit, an old acquaintance and Artemis decided to run off on her own again." There was a certain note of disapproval in his voice during that last part, and I decided to start taking his claims a little more seriously. If talking to Artemis was anything like talking to Dionysus, she wasn't someone you used that tone with-or even about-lightly.

**"**There were mitigating circumstances!" Kim protested.**"**

I know, I know," the armored man sighed. He shook his head, another short breath escaping before he said, "I just have a bad feeling, is all. If it was dangerous enough for her to leave you behind, I wish she'd have waited for backup. Me or Apollo, or even one of the other gods. I know Ares has been itching for a fight, lately. Hell, if she'd even taken Zoë..."

At this point I'd gotten used to people throwing gods' names around casually, but what caught me was the fact that Marcus was worried about one of the gods who, if I remember correctly, took the least amount of crap from anybody back in the days before anger management classes. "Sounds like I'm not the most interesting thing going on around here," I chimed in.

Marcus only snorted. "Kid, you walked out of the woods and into the middle of a war."

**"**There's always a war," Kim sighed.

**"**This one's going to be worse," Marcus promised. "It's been two years and we haven't won yet-I guarantee you we're not going to see the end anytime soon."

**"**Lady Artemis has a trail," Kim said loyally. "She might be able to stop it before it starts. If anyone can, it's her."

Marcus gave a grunt that landed somewhere between worried and unconvinced, furrowing his brow. After a moment he shook his head, turning to face me again. "One thing at a time. Pat. Gods, Titans and monsters. What do you know about them?"

I blinked, the sudden line of questioning having caught me off guard. "Well... they're Greek," I sputtered. The blonde mountain of a man arched a brow, silently telling me to continue. "Well, there's the twelve Olympians. Zeus is in charge and has a thing for women-" I paused to look up as thunder rumbled faintly, but Marcus rolled his eyes and gestured for me to go on. I decided to move away from the gods, continuing with, "Uh... The Titans came before them, but they got kicked out. The Trojan War happened somewhere in there, and from what I've seen monsters are bad."

**"**Alright, you've got a good enough idea," Marcus answered, walking toward a rack of longbows, "Or at least no worse than anyone else." I managed to catch the bow he sent arcing toward me, shooting a confused look back in the man's direction. "I want to see where you stand on the practical side of things. Take a few shots at the target and we'll see how you do against Kim."

**"**... It's all the way over there," I pointed out, gesturing to what I was guessing was something like sixty feet of empty air between me and the archery target before Marcus shoved a quiver of arrows into my hand. I cycled through the various arguments I had at my disposal, ranging from 'I've never shot a bow before' to 'I could still sue you people for kidnapping and child endangerment', but gave up before trying any of them. I'd barely known the guy for a day and I could already tell I wouldn't win an argument with him, so I slung the quiver over my shoulder and grabbed for an arrow.

**… **an arrow that fell about twenty feet short of the target. I could hear Kim select her arrow and send it away just next to me as I got another shot ready. This time it at least made the full distance, but it turns out I aimed about five feet to the right of the target. There was a short couple of 'ruff's from my left that I would've sworn were Owen laughing if I hadn't managed to narrowly convince myself that wolves couldn't laugh. It was a shade of a hope given the things I'd seen yesterday, but that was at least enough to let me adjust my aim and take one more shot with the bow.

_Thunk._

Good news: I hit a target that time. Bad news: it was Kim's. I stared in a combination of surprise that I'd actually hit something and disbelief at the fact that I could suck _that _badly, but a glimmer drew my eye toward the center of the target. The disbelief intensified a little more when I saw where both of Kim's shots had landed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the blonde ready another arrow.

_Thunk._

Three bullseyes, dead on and no argument. "You've got to be kidding me," I said lamely, tossing the bow back to Marcus. The quiver followed as soon as it came off of my shoulder, along with a couple of silent insults. I mean, come on, the guy expected me to get into a contest with a trained archer and do anything less than look like a five-year-old with a toy bow? Marcus was smirking, which I think was the only reason I decided to break my policy about throwing profane insults at people who weighed about forty pounds more than me.

**"**Oh, come on. Ari could come up with something better than that," Marcus retorted with a good-natured chuckle. "Besides," he added on a moment later, "_She _wouldn't get totally beaten out by the blind girl."

Owen definitely snickered that time.**"**Yeah, well-you're _blind?"_

Kim smiled, albeit sadly, letting one last arrow fly before turning to face me. "I've been blind for fifteen years," she said softly, placing a hand on Owen's head as if to reassure herself that he was still there, and all of a sudden a lot of her downright weird behavior made a lot of sense. The way she hadn't realized I'd moved last night until she paused for a few minutes to listen for me, the odd way she had of not quite making eye contact, how she'd tensed up when we walked in on her alone until Marcus confirmed who he was...

… but not how she'd somehow made four perfect bullseyes in a row from sixty feet back like it was nothing. "Did you learn to shoot like that before or after your eyes crapped out?" I grumbled, maybe just a bit jealous that I could barely keep my head on in all this but somebody who couldn't see was shooting bullseyes. Okay, a lot jealous.**  
><strong>**  
><strong>**"**After," she said calmly, sightless eyes flickering briefly in Marcus' general direction. "That really wasn't fair," she said. "You _knew_that would happen, there was no need to humiliate him!"**"**I'm not trying to give him a complex," Marcus reassured her, "I'm just not about to make any assumptions about him. If he's going to be here, we need to know what he can do."I glanced back to Kim's four-bullseye target for a second, still trying to work out how a blind girl could shoot that well. "Apparently not archery, so what else have you got?" I asked as I turned back to my newly acquired trainer.**  
><strong>

"Me."**  
><strong>

Obeying the law of dramatic entrances, I turned toward the arena's entrance to face the new voice. "Another Hunter, right?" I asked mid-turn, and almost groaned when I saw that I was right. Then I noticed that we were eye-level with each other... and she had shoulders that were almost broader than mine.

The silver-clad bodybuilder gave a cocky smirk before crossing confidently over to us. "Phoebe," she said by way of introduction; then, to Kim, "Here."

Kim blinked, confused, and Phoebe sighed, taking the blind girl's hand and closing it carefully on a paper plate. **"**Thank you," said Kim, surprised. She cocked her head for a moment and asked, "Bacon and eggs?"

**"**It's an omelette," Phoebe said gruffly. "The bacon's for the dog."**  
><strong>

Kim tried not to smile. "Thank you, Phoebe." She felt carefully around the edges of the plate until she found a plastic fork, then handed a strip of bacon down to Owen. "You didn't have to do that."**  
><strong>

"Yeah, well." Phoebe scowled and put her hands in her pockets. "You don't eat enough. No wonder you're crap in a fight."**  
><strong>

"What does that make me?" I muttered, reaching up to rub at the bridge of my nose. Awake for an hour and I was already wondering how I'd get through the next one. **  
><strong>

"I dunno," she grinned, looking me over. "Wanna find out?"**  
><strong>

Marcus gave a laugh that was only marginally evil from somewhere off to the side before tossing me to the wolves with, "I do. Get in there, Patrick. I promise she won't break you."**  
><strong>

"Not in too many pieces, anyway," Phoebe assured me, reaching into her pocket.**  
><strong>

She pulled out a very shiny, very large, very bronze battleaxe.**  
><strong>

I gaped, looking over to Marcus. "You've gotta be _shitting _me!" I blurted before I could stop myself, looking back to the axe-wielding Girl Scout in total disbelief. How did she even fit that in there?

**"**Yes, she is," came a particularly pointed intervention from Marcus, who was standing with his arms folded. "Two pieces is too many, Phoebe, you can't cut him in half."

Phoebe actually looked disappointed, but she sighed and... did something to the weapon. I couldn't tell exactly how it worked, but the giant double-bladed battleaxe folded down and disappeared so that she was holding something red and metallic, which she tucked back into her pocket. I started telling myself that there was no possible way anyone could have an axe in their Swiss Army Knife, but gave up about halfway through the thought.**"**Just hand-to-hand, then?" she sighed.**  
><strong>

I rolled my shoulders, resigning myself to the fight that I probably wasn't getting out of now that the Hunter was only regular crazy instead of axe-crazy. "Yeah, sorry for wanting to keep my head attached."

Phoebe heaved a heavy sigh. "That's all right, I guess."

I came to what must have only been five or six seconds later, sprawled out on my back. It took a minute to register the abrupt change in scenery, and then my mouth started to hurt. I... didn't even think she had been close enough to throw a punch.**  
><strong>

"I didn't even see that," Kim commented from the sidelines, "and it _still _hurt to watch."

I blinked and shook my head, managing to stand up without any trouble. "Ow," I said thoughtfully-and, admittedly, maybe a little redundantly-before working my jaw and checking for any missing teeth with my tongue. I dropped a hand to my side with a frown, feeling at one of my pockets. "Crap, did I drop my phone?"

Phoebe frowned and leaned to the side to check behind me. "I don't think-"

**"**Bingo!" I interrupted, throwing a quick punch into the Hunter's gut. The grunt that came from her lips was probably more surprise than pain, but it gave me a second to shove her back, bring my fists up and adjust my feet.

Just in time, too: Phoebe was already coming back for another punch, the grin back on her lips and with a fierce edge. I stepped inside the blow's arc and shoved my arm against hers, preferring to take half a punch to half my arm instead of a whole right hook to my whole jaw. Another grunt escaped her when I sent a knee up into her gut, driving the Hunter back a step that I mirrored in the opposite direction. I snapped a quick kick toward her right side, figuring that she couldn't knock me over if I didn't let her hit back.

The swift realization that this particular Girl Scout didn't need to throw a punch to knock me over came about when she pinned my leg against her side with her arm, and pivoted to send me stumbling and crashing back down onto the ground.**  
><strong>

Ow. That was my head. And those things flying around in front of me are the stars I see from hitting my head. Funny how that works, isn't it?**  
><strong>

The stars started fading when a pair of hands hauled me up by the shoulders, and the first thing I saw was a snarky grin. "I don't mind you," its owner said, helping me up to my feet. "Even if you do fight worse than Kim."**  
><strong>

Kim cleared her throat to get our attention, gesturing roughly toward her quadruple bullseye with a piece of bacon before handing the strip down to Owen indignantly. Well, as indignantly as you can hand a wolf a piece of bacon.

**"**I'm gonna be dead in three days," I lamented, rubbing at the sore spot on the back of my head.

**"**Oh, don't think like that," Phoebe said sternly. "It might not take that long!"

**"**Play nice, ladies," Marcus' voice chuckled from just behind me before I felt a light pat on the shoulder.

I almost considered throwing a punch at him, too, but settled for a flat look before going to lean against a stretch of wall off to the side. How did I manage to choke that crazy bird-woman to death when I could barely keep up with people who were actually mostly normal?**  
><strong>

"You're not doing bad for somebody who just stumbled into all this, Patrick," the ancient thirty-year-old told me a little more kindly, reaching over to give my shoulder a squeeze. "Every single one of us was green once upon a time, but most of the kids in this camp have been training like Marines since they were ten."**  
><strong>

I let a little sigh out, folding my arms and looking over the arena. A soldier older than the country I live in, a blind girl who can shoot bullseyes, another girl who could probably make professional boxers cry, and then little ol' me. "I don't exactly feel like I was meant to stumble into all this to begin with," I admitted after a minute, "It's cool and all, thinking about fighting monsters and knowing that all the old myths are real-but what the hell am _I _doing here, you know?"

**"**Well, there's one thing you've got in common with the others already," Kim said matter-of-factly from the sidelines. She set her breakfast aside to the disappointment of Owen, who'd been sniffing hopefully at another slice of bacon. "None of us felt like we belonged here, at first." She picked up the last slice of bacon and was offering it to Owen when a sudden thought occurred to her. "Well, I mean... some of us ended up not staying anyway," she said, using the bacon to indicate herself. Owen, who'd been about to bite into it, huffed in irritation. "But I'm talking about the others. I spent three years here before joining the Hunt; I saw it often enough." She used her bacon as a pointer, jabbing it at me in a reassuring manner while Owen watched it with a forlorn look in his eyes. "Give it time; by summer, you'll be at home. You may not want to leave, actually."

**"**Marcus!"**  
><strong>

"They keep the fire extinguisher next to the armory, Zoë!" Marcus answered, grinning as he pushed himself away from the wall. "Did you put one into Mr. D's kidney, like you said you would last time?"

**"**I have arranged a permanent guard for Tori," Zoë said coldly. "Further action on our part should not be necessary at this time. Have you seen Ariana?"

**"**Have you checked the gift shop?" he asked, waving a hand toward what I assumed was that general direction. A moment later, he thoughtfully added, "And I'd make sure the Aphrodite cabin has a bucket of water out front, just in case."

Zoë did not look amused, which made _me_ just a little bit amused. "Yes, I have," she snapped. "I was searching for my specialized arrows, which have mysteriously gone missing. I was politely informed that the store did not have any, but were they lucky enough to come into possession of some they would be happy to sell them to me at a reasonable price. Now kindly tell me where Ari is, so that I might wring her neck."**  
><strong>

I snorted and chimed in, "Careful, she might steal your wallet while you've got her," before I could convince myself to keep quiet. "You know, usually people laugh at jokes," I pointed out when all she did was shoot me an irate glance. Somebody really needed to teach this Girl Scout how to smile.

**"**People also usually introduce themselves before they start hating each other," Marcus cut in firmly. He gave both Zoë and Ia look of his own, making sure to lock eyes with us for a few moments each. "Pat, this is Zoë Nightshade, Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis. Zoë, this is Patrick Alexander, a new arrival who, from what I hear, managed to burn his tongue on some Nectar." _Now shake hands and play nice_, I imagined him continuing while my tongue throbbed at the mention of that glowing battery acid.**  
><strong>

Zoë ignored the unspoken addendum. "If you see Ari," she said, "Kindly ask her if she might have found a set of specialized Olympian arrows lying unattended and decided to take them into protective custody."**  
><strong>

"Is that what she's calling it now?" Kim asked. Owen, seeing his chance, lunged forward and snatched his bacon strip from her fingers. "Say, if she's keeping your arrows safe, see if my comb is keeping them company, will you?"

Zoë gave a sigh that almost managed to keep from becoming a chuckle, but didn't quite make it to the end without giving in. "That was... what, the same joke with a few different words?" I asked, shooting the head Girl Scout a glare of my own. Alright, so I suppose I _was_being petty, but you can't blame me for it. I mean, this girl had gone out of her way to either ignore me or glare at me, and what did I do other than try to _say hello? _

Zoë, to the shock of no one, ignored me, going on to ask Kim about something that I just didn't quite catch with all the red I was starting to see. "Alright, that's it," I growled, shoving past Marcus. I had every intention of grabbing the Hunter's shoulder and making her listen, going over a nice, mean rant in my head one last time to finalize the oversaturation of swear words-and then a hand yanked on my shoulder and I was facing Marcus faster than Phoebe threw that first punch, earlier.**  
><strong>

"Not now," Marcus ordered in a low voice, overpowering any arguments I could make before I even opened my mouth to make them. I followed his glance off to the left and nearly tried to lunge for Zoë when I saw the look she was giving me: like I was a third grader who was fine when he was quiet, but needed to go away whenever he tried to talk. A squeeze on the shoulder brought my eyes back over to Marcus, whose expression was getting a lot less firm and a lot more understanding. "Don't start a fight," he said after a short pause, reaching to his belt and unclipping something, "when you can make a point."

Suddenly, there was an M1911 pistol in my hand, and a mischievous twinkle in its owner's eyes.


End file.
